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Claim: Ortega Stole Nicaraguan Election
As supporters of Sandinista Daniel Ortega celebrate what they claim is a victory in Nicaragua’s presidential election, his chief rival Eduardo Montealegre insists Ortega did not win enough votes to avoid a runoff.
A candidate needs 35 percent of the vote and a lead of five points to win outright and avert a second round of voting. Early results showed Ortega – who led Nicaragua from 1985 to 1990 – garnering slightly more than 40 percent of the vote.
Montealegre was in second with 33 percent. But Montealegre declared that the partial result "is not a tendency,” and said "there are quick counts which show we are headed to a second round.”
He also complained that the election was marked by irregularities that he said "violated the vote and the popular will of Nicaraguan people.”
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A U.S. electoral monitoring team named by President Bush said it had "received reports of anomalies in the electoral process, including the delayed opening of the ballot boxes, the slowness of the voting process and the premature closing of some of the balloting centers.”
The team said in a statement late Sunday that they were not in a position to make an immediate assessment of "the impartiality and transparency of the process.”
But a source in Managua, the Nicaraguan capital, told NewsMax: "The elections board (CSE) is trying to help the Sandinistas steal the election. First, many people were not given their voting credentials. On election day, many people were impeded from voting. Then with the vote count, the CSE cherry-picked precincts to create the early appearance that Ortega had won.
"The Sandinista media claimed victory, and their mobs took to the streets. "Parallel quick count operations, however, indicate that Ortega came up a little short and there should be a second round.”
Editor's note:
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