In a marked contrast to the Hondurans who illegally threw out their rightful ruler, the Nicaraguans are taking a much more sensible approach to things. Link Hopefully Honduras will see how well this works out for Nicaragua and decide to let their president back in and let him get rid of the term limits that are foiling the will of the people.
Is my sarcasm meter not working? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...593948546118.html?mod=sphere_ts&mod=sphere_wd "Last week, President Ortega inadvertently provided the best defense yet of the Honduran decision this summer to remove Manuel Zelaya from the presidency. Nicaragua has a one-term limit for presidents, and Mr. Ortega's term expires in 2011. However, the Nicaraguan doesn't want to leave, and so he asked the Sandinista-controlled Supreme Court to overturn the constitutional ban on his re-election. Last week the court's constitutional panel obliged him. The Nicaraguan press reported that the vote was held before three opposition judges could reach the chamber in time for the session. Three alternative judges, all Sandinistas, took their place and the court gave Mr. Ortega the green light. Mr. Ortega has decreed that the ruling cannot be appealed. This is classic strong-man stuff on Hugo Chávez's Venezuela model." Couldn't this just have been posted in the Honduran thread?
Yes. I suppose, but I was hoping it might provoke some discussion on where Nicaragua goes from here. Are they really destined for a Chavista like dictatorship, or is there still hope?
Destined The first democratic elections in the nation´s history were in 1984 (during the civil war which had begun in the 70s,) which the very same Ortega won by a landslide. It was nothing more than a publicity stunt to throw off claims by the Reagan administration and human rights organizations that Ortega´s FSLN government was illegitimate. The second were in 1990 and monitored by Jimmy Carter, which Ortega narrowly lost after gernering 44% of the vote (there were still allegations of both CIA interference and both Contras and Sandinistas intimidating voters at gunpoint). Violetta Chamorro (her husband had been assassinated by the Somoza regime for editing a pro-Sandinista newspaper, and the entire family had Sandinista connections) unseated him, so it was a nice little trade-off and everyone went away happy. Basically, support from Cuba and the Soviet Union had dried up as both regimes struggled with cash, and the long, drawn out civil war combined with the US blockdade drained the economy, and Nicaraguans were willing to vote for anyone who would end the war. Ortega again won the 2006 elections under shady circumstances, garnering only 38% of the vote, since Conservatives split their votes between two parties (LCP 27.11% NLA 28.30%.) A deal was believed to have been made with former Conservative president Aleman who was under house arrest for stealing close to $100 million from the national treasury, since one of the first things the FSLN-controlled congress/judicial system did when retaking power was overturning his sentence. Again, all parties went away happy. This is pretty much how democracy works in Nicaragua.