Sunday’s Election is the first time the Sandinista Liberation Front have won since the 1990. They party that brought revolution to Nicaraqua is now returned. A big question for leftists is “can the Sandinistas still fulfill any of their original revolutionary plans, especially to fight poverty?”
One thing that is noticeable, not matter what Daniel Ortega actually stands for or does, his win is as big a set back for the Republican party as loosing the congress to the Democrats and it follows a trend in all of Latin America to reject the right-wing parties of the past for left-wing or populist parties. Not so much the revolutionary left as the electoral left.
Here’s an example opinion from From Z-Net, November 10, 200:
“If you listen to right-wing pundits and Republican officials, the return to power of former revolutionary Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua is not evidence of democracy in action but rather an invitation to Communist tyranny, terrorism and even nuclear holocaust. It appears that on November 5 Nicaraguans went to the polls and committed the sin of selecting a leader not in favor with the White House. With more than 60 percent of the votes now counted, Ortega has won 39 percent, while his nearest rival, right-wing banker Eduardo Montealegre of the of the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance, holds only 31 percent. In the five-way race for the presidency, this margin is enough to hand a victory to Ortega's Sandinista-led coalition, giving the political party control of the executive for the first time since 1990.
A statistical sample of polling places suggests that Ortega's lead will hold, and this likelihood has prodded US conservatives into some fits of fantastically overblown rhetoric. At National Review, former Reagan and George H.W. Bush speechwriter Mark Klugmann writes, "a Nicaragua that opens its arms to murderous radicalism poses a threat for America and the world.... A nuclear North Korea and a nuclear Iran could be in position, with an ally so close to our porous frontier, to wreak the havoc we once thought only the Soviet Union could ever bring home."
Of course, the fantasy that a small, poor and geopolitically marginal Central American nation could be a major threat to US national security is a throwback to cold war-era propaganda films like Red Dawn. It reflects the current foreign policy mindset of Washington conservatives but does not resemble anything like reality.
The return of Daniel Ortega to Nicaragua's presidency hardly portends a menacing new danger for the US heartland. It does, however, mark two important developments in the rise of an increasingly independent Latin America. First, given concerted efforts on the part of the Bush Administration to influence the outcome of the election, it signals that US threats of retaliation may no longer be sufficient to keep Central American citizens from voting for leaders willing to buck Washington's economic program. Second, in spite of Ortega's standing as a deeply compromised political figure, his election provides a modest opening for hope that a new Nicaraguan administration might do a better job of addressing the country's endemic poverty than have the past sixteen years of neoliberal rule.”
CBC news has reported on Ortega’s win, November 8:
Former revolutionary leader Daniel Ortega has won Nicaragua's presidential election, according to nearly complete results released Tuesday.
Ortega won with 38 per cent of the vote, the country's top electoral officer reported.
Nicaragua's ruler from 1985 to 1990, he had lost three presidential elections before this week's vote.
The leader of the Sandinista Liberation Front defeated four opponents. His main rival, Harvard-educated Eduardo Montealegre, conceded the election with more than 90 per cent of the vote counted from the weekend voting.
Much of the Latin American electorial left has made much of Ortega’s win.
The web site of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR) de Chile congragulated Ortega:
Compañeros
Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional
Presente
Es un honor para nosotros saludar a ustedes, y a todos quienes conforman Unida Nicaragua Triunfa.
El triunfo obtenido por el pueblo nicaraguense en la persona del Compañero Presidente, Comandante Daniel Ortega, representa una enorme dicha para los revolucionarios del mundo entero.
La lucha por el socialismo a nivel continental, sigue marcando los horizontes de los hombres y mujeres de nuestro partido. Sigan encontrando en nosotros un brazo amigo desde las australes tierras de nuestra América.
Con el ejemplo de Carlos Fonseca, Schafik Handal, Raúl Sendic, Roberto Santucho y Miguel Enríquez
POR UNA VIDA DIGNA PARA TODOS
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