Nov 20, 2008. NY Times report on Nica

Claims of a Rigged Vote Foment Bitter Protests in Nicaragua

By MARC LACEY
Published: November 19, 2008

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — As homemade mortar rounds exploded over this capital, and angry demonstrators poured into the streets for a second consecutive day, Nicaragua found itself mired Wednesday in an increasingly bitter struggle over who controls Managua and scores of other cities across the country.

Oswaldo Rivas/Reuters

Police officers on Sunday in León, Nicaragua, detained a supporter of Eduardo Montealegre, who insisted he was the winner of the mayoral race in Managua.
Esteban Felix/Associated Press

Supporters of the left-wing Sandinista party of President Daniel Ortega threw stones during a clash on Sunday in León.

Opposition leaders accuse President Daniel Ortega's left-wing Sandinista party of rigging the mayoral race here and hundreds of other municipal races across the country in an effort to extend its political reach.

Before Election Day, Nov. 9, Mr. Ortega limited the access of outside election observers and then, his critics contend, ordered his underlings to tamper with the balloting to ensure that candidates loyal to him came out on top.

"This fight isn't about the Managua mayoralty," said Eduardo Montealegre, who insisted he was the legitimate winner of the mayoral race even though the Sandinista-controlled electoral council said preliminary figures indicated that he had lost.

"It's more fundamental," he said. "It's about dictatorship versus democracy."

Mr. Montealegre, a member of the Constitutional Liberal Party, has tried to protest the results, but he has been met by angry Sandinistas at every turn. They have chased away his supporters and have turned the streets into a free-for-all.

Demonstrators blocked intersections and pelted cars with rocks. Members of rival political parties have faced off in angry confrontations, and nervous merchants have closed up their businesses.

Mr. Ortega has remained silent. A Sandinista revolutionary who led Nicaragua in the 1980s, he was ousted in 1990. But he was re-elected in 2006 in a hotly contested race in which his closest rival was Mr. Montealegre. While Mr. Ortega won with only 38 percent of the vote, he has moved to impose his Sandinista stamp on all aspects of society.

Sandinistas clearly control the streets. For weeks before Election Day, the party's supporters began camping out at traffic circles in what they called prayers for peace over hate. Opposition leaders saw it as an attempt to hold on to central public spaces and to limit opposition rallies.

"The streets are ours," said José Bonilla, a Sandinista supporter holding a homemade plywood shield, during the tumult in Managua on Tuesday afternoon. Fellow demonstrators, waving red-and-black Sandinista flags, shot explosives over the heads of riot police officers who were blocking them from Mr. Montealegre's rally a block away.

When Mr. Ortega cast his ballot in an election that was viewed as the first test of his influence since his re-election, he defended the integrity of the balloting and accused the local media of trying to discredit the results and "create an image of Nicaragua at war."

Mr. Montealegre, backed by leaders of the Catholic Church and Nicaragua's two largest business organizations, is demanding a full recount monitored by international observers.

Mr. Ortega's skepticism of international observers traces back to the 1990 election, in which he was defeated by Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. "From that moment, the truth is that I lost faith in the Organization of American States and all the other organisms," he said in a speech before the election.

The Supreme Electoral Council of Nicaragua, in its initial report on the voting on Nov. 9, said the Sandinista mayoral candidate in Managua, Alexis Argüello, 52, a three-time world boxing champion, had defeated Mr. Montealegre, 53, who is a Harvard-educated former finance minister.

But in response to a barrage of criticism, including some from the United States and other governments, Roberto Rivas, the president of the electoral council, ordered a recount. But he said it would not be monitored by independent outsiders.

"We are doing it so that the Nicaraguan people — not the embassies, but the Nicaraguan people — are completely satisfied that their vote was respected," Mr. Rivas said in a news conference last week.

Mr. Rivas did not address accusations that polls closed early and that opposition electoral delegates were forced out of the final counting of the vote in Managua. He did request that state prosecutors investigate reports that ballots marked for the opposition were found in the municipal dump in León, northwest of Managua.

"It must be found out whether public officials are involved," he said, adding that he would "get to the bottom of this case."

In his news conference, Mr. Rivas chided Mr. Montealegre for failing to file a formal fraud complaint with Nicaraguan prosecutors and for calling on his supporters to take to the streets in protest.

But Mr. Montealegre, in an interview on Wednesday, said it was the government that was responsible for the violence. Gesturing at newspaper photographs that showed his supporters waving Nicaraguan flags and Sandinista backers clutching rocks and sticks, he said Mr. Ortega was responsible for the violence in the streets.

"He is the president of the country, not me," Mr. Montealegre said. "He can end this."

Blake Schmidt contributed reporting.
More Articles in World » A version of this article appeared in print on November 20, 2008, on page A6 of the New York edition.