Ortega Wins Nicaragua Presidential Race; US isn't happy

Former President of Nicaragua Daniel Ortega wins elections again after voluntarily relinquished power in 1990 for losing the election to Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. For much of his life, he has been an important leader in the Sandinista National Liberation Front. Both Cuban President Fidel Castro aswell as President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez congratulated him. Ortega, however, has so far held to his campaign theme of reconciliation, indicating he hopes to avoid the fearsome hostility with the United States.




Why is the US not happy?

Ortega first came to power in 1979 after ousting Anastasio Somoza, the US-backed dictator whose family had run Nicaragua since the mid-1930’s. He was part of a ruling junta until 1985 when he was elected president. In 1990 he lost the presidency to a former junta colleague, Violeta Chamorro. During the entire tenure of his leadership, the Reagan administration funded and armed the group of homicidal drug smugglers known as the Contras and likened by Reagan to the founding fathers of the US, who were apparently in Reagan’s mind also a bunch of swamp-rat dope-dealing thugs working to found a country that had been established 100 years earlier.

His history includes rather solid allegations of corruption, allegations of sexual abuse from his step-daughter, and two more failed presidential bids, which sounds to me a lot like a good handful or more of Republican Congressional figures. He is also a former Marxist, which narrows the similarities considerably but perhaps not entirely. Regardless, it’s something of a mystery why a probably corrupt, possibly abusive and certainly power-hungry politician in a small and entirely powerless country should arouse this degree of angst among his like-minded brethren to the north.

Related News Links:
www.forbes.com
en.wikipedia.org
www.periodico26.cu

[edit on 8-11-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]

Big deal if the Bush administration isn't happy. It's none of their damned business who Nicaragua chose as it's president. They know the man far better than we do. What are we going to do wage another contra war? Don't answer that. There might have been a slim case for fighting the Sandinistas in the 80's in an attempt to prevent the spread of communism. But, what was done there and in Honduras and Chile and so many other states in our name, was wrong and has gone far in creating an atmosphere of hatred toward the United States, far more than any 'terrorist" propaganda ever could.

Originally posted by grover
Big deal if the Bush administration isn't happy. It's none of their damned business who Nicaragua chose as it's president.

Amen!!! And thank god Bush no longer has the power to seriously interfere with other countries' elections. At least, not without the approval of the Democrats, and I'm pretty sure they're sick of all the interference as well. I hope, with all the moderate blood in me, that our government has learned a hard lesson about the reality of the world. We, as Americans, do not run the other countries, and rather than focus our national energy towards changing the leadership to someone who will just say "Yes," maybe instead we should learn how to play ball and listen to what other countries have to say.

So is this another country on the list to invade so they can set up a puppet government?

Maybe they will be put on the "axis of evil".

Well the Sandinista has been know to do some !@$ up #. I just hope he does not do the same as did back in the day. I whole family is #!@% up cause his "fight for freedom." He lie to everyone when he said that he going to make Nicaragua a Democracy!!! He better not be lie to people again or another 20 years of civil war will plague my homeland.

Originally posted by El Che
Well the Sandinista has been know to do some !@$ up #. I just hope he does not do the same as did back in the day. I whole family is #!@% up cause his "fight for freedom." He lie to everyone when he said that he going to make Nicaragua a Democracy!!! He better not be lie to people again or another 20 years of civil war will plague my homeland.

Well according to this articel MercuryNews
they say he showed no sign of returning to the fiery rhetoric of his past. On the campaign trail, he promoted reconciliation, free trade and ties with Washington.

But, he added, ``We need to make sure that each home, each Nicaraguan family can live with dignity and honor.'' Which isn't a very strange way of thinking.

The ex-rebel says he is a changed man who has learned from his past mistakes, and he promises to help the poor by creating jobs and building on a recently approved Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States.

[edit on 12/11/2006 by rai76]

For some reason countries and their populations rather than learning from their past historical catastrophes they just seem to fall again into the same type of oppression that made their lives miserable.

I wonder sometimes how can that be possible. How people can not find grow and desire for a better life and better government.

Time will tell of what Nicaragua will become with this new elected government.

Perhaps an exodus of Nicaraguan people looking for political asylum into the US will follow.

I was thinking the same thing marg. Who know he might of changed. But as you said only time will tell.

I have to ask do we even know how Ortega will govern? I mean the last time he was in power, not only was he the head of the Sandinistas but his country was constantly under siege by the contras, a civil war as it were, or more exactly a counter-civil war. With his country at peace....it may be an entirely different matter...different times different circumstances...plus people do grow and change...so do countries....something ideologues hate to admit.