Municipal Elections

Hey all!

Alright-- so here´s the update with Nicaragua's municipal elections:
Tension has been pretty high. The PLC (Rightist party - which is called the Liberal party, but "liberal" here has a different meaning than it does in the States) has been claiming since results came out (on Sunday night) that there is a fraud.
Monday the FSLN (Leftist party that has been holding power nationally since 2006) was already claiming victory in Managua when they were only up by 5% with 69% of votes counted. The PLC claims that their vote counts from the polls show that they have received a larger number of votes than the Supreme Electoral Council has reported.
Actually Monday, the huge fiasco was over the Supreme Electoral Council saying they had received 100% of the votes when there were actually stacks and stacks of votes that the PLC had yet in their position (that still hadnt been taken into account).
Since Monday there have been riots throughout the streets... No worries, all this has been viewed by myself and the other students only through the television (and not in person). The leaders of our program keep us updated and very safe. Además our neighborhood is very tranquil (although the overwhelming majority of its inhabitants are prideful FSLN supporters).
Last night Heather (a friend from my program who lives in the homestay with me) and I took our brother, one of our sisters and a neighbor to the new James Bond 007 movie (which interestingly enough focused on US relations with Latin America..hmm... But anyway, on the way to the theater our taxi driver was waved over by two police cars on the side of the road. Another car in front of the taxi was also made to pull-over. As we were about to park, the others and I already knew what this would be about... The police were making random checks to make sure that no one traveling on the main road ways were carrying rocks or other weapons in their cars (rocks have been used in violent manners throughout these days in the riots). So as the minutes to the start of the movie were dwindling down and our taxi driver was still over talking with the police, the five of us scrunched, sitting on on another in the cab decided to get out. As we looked back we saw the driver getting upset with the police... Ay. It turns out when the driver finally returned to the cab that the police had wanted the driver to pay them off. Because the driver became upset and (probably) made up an excuse, he ended up not giving the police any money. Our sister said it is common that the police will ask to be paid-off, although of course that it not technically right.
So we finally arrived to our movie. But we couldn´t help but laugh along the way because during our whole ride with the cab driver, he automatically thought we were supporters of the PLC. Mind you my family members are staunch supporters of the FSLN... but they went along with him saying "Así es..."

Verymuch love and support for the MRS...

Anni.

(IT IS SO INTERESTING HERE TO WITNESS THIS POLITICAL PRIDE AND ENERGY------

This is a vital election because the winner will be more likely to remain in power through the presidential elections (which will occur in 2011) and furthermore because many say that Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua´s current President) has been increasingly trying to secure-in his position (wanting to potentially change Nicaragua´s constitution to run for another term)