Nicaraguan general election, 2006

General elections were held in Nicaragua on 5 November 2006. The country's voters went to the polls to elect a new President of the Republic and 90 members of the National Assembly. Daniel Ortega (FSLN) won the election with 37.99% of the vote, Eduardo Montealegre (ALN) trailing with 28.30%, José Rizo (PLC) with 27.1%, Edmundo Jarquín (MRS) with 6.29%, and Edén Pastora (AC) with just 0.29%.

Background

Right-wing political parties had dominated Nicaraguan politics since independence in 1838. Following the dissolution of the Legitimist party in 1851 and the Democratic party in 1936, the Liberals and Conservatives had succeeded each other in the government with the exception of the Sandinista rule from 1979 to 1990.

The two-party system has survived until today, with the difference that the two rival forces currently are the FSLN and the self-appointed Democratic Forces (anti-Sandinistas).

The current electoral scene could be the end of the bipartite scheme as the anti-Sandinista forces split into two major political alliances: the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance (ALN) and the Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC). The Sandinista forces are also running divided, as the dissident Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) is pulling a significant number of the moderated Sandinista and independent votes.

Electoral reforms in 2000

The electoral reforms introduced in January 2000, as a result of the pact between the PLC and the FSLN, established new rules for the contending parties in the elections.

The required percentages to win the Presidential Election was reduced from 45 to 40 percent. The electoral law states that a participating candidate must obtain a relative majority of at least 40 percent of the vote to win a presidential election. However, a candidate may win by obtaining at least 35 percent of the vote, with at least a five percent margin over the second-place finisher. The law also established a second-round runoff election if none of the candidates won in the first round.

In addition, a party could also lose its legal status if it obtains less than 4 percent of the votes in the general elections.

Presidential candidates

Alternative for Change

President: Edén Pastora

Edén Pastora, the former Sandinista Deputy Defense Minister (1979–1981), was the presidential candidate for the Nicaraguan Democratic Action Party (PAD) in 1996. The Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) barred him from running for the presidency on the grounds that he had Costa Rican nationality. In the 2004 municipal elections, Pastora was running for mayor of Managua on the Independent Liberal Party's ticket. Pastora got less than 5% of the votes.

Vice-president: Mercedes Tenorio

Mercedes Tenorio, a Nicaraguan nurse, is Pastora's running mate. Tenorio was an active member of the Sandinista Health Workers' Federation (FETSALUD).

Constitutionalist Liberal Party

President: José Rizo

José Rizo, co-founder of the PLC, and his running mate José Antonio Alvarado, who were also citizens of Chile and the United States, respectively, were prohibited from participating in the 1996 elections by the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE). In 1997, under the government of Arnoldo Alemán, Rizo was appointed president of the Nicaraguan Institute for Municipal Development (INIFOM). After the reforms to the Electoral Law in the year 2000, part of the pact between the PLC and the FSLN, Rizo was able to contest the 2001 elections where he was elected vice-president, running on the PLC ticket.

Vice-president: José Antonio Alvarado

José Antonio Alvarado, one of the founders of the PLC, and later expelled from it for his dissidence to Alemán, held various ministerial portfolios during both the Alemán and Bolaños administration. Like his running mate, the CSE excluded him from participating in the 2001 elections as the vice-presidential candidate of the Conservative Party. In late August 2005, Eduardo Montealegre, the ALN's presidential candidate, invited Alvarado to join him as his vice-president. Alvarado was elected the presidential candidate of the Alliance for the Republic (APRE) in the primaries held in May 2006 with about 82% of the votes. Shortly after APRE joined the ALN alliance and Alvarado went back to the PLC.

Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance

President: Eduardo Montealegre

Eduardo Montealegre, a former banker and economist, is the youngest and wealthiest of the five candidates. Like Alvarado, he held various ministerial portfolios during both the Alemán and Bolaños administration, including Foreign Minister with Alemán and Treasury Minister under Bolaños government. After his expulsion from the PLC he founded the ALN together with other dissidents. Montealgre's adversaries have criticized him for his involvement in the CENI bond operation – now a substantial part of the domestic debt – after several banks got into financial problems due to fraudulent practices over the course of 1999–2001.

Vice-president: Fabricio Cajina

Fabricio Cajina, an agricultural producer, was the Conservative mayor of San José de los Remates (2000–2004) in the department of Boaco.

Sandinista National Liberation Front

President: Daniel Ortega

Daniel Ortega, coordinator of the Junta of National Reconstruction (1979–1985), ascended to the presidency after the 1984 elections. Ortega, general secretary of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, was President of Nicaragua from 1985 to 1990 and presidential candidate of the FSLN in 1990, 1996, 2001 and 2006. Prominent Sandinista leaders have left the party or have been expelled for dissenting to Ortega's power. Despite all, Ortega is pulling in first place in the polls.

Vice-president: Jaime Morales Carazo

Jaime Morales Carazo, the civilian chief of the Contras in the 1980s and Alemán's right-hand man for many years, was one of the founders of the PLC and liberal legislator in the National Assembly until 2006. Morales Carazo began to distance himself politically from Alemán and the PLC once Bolaños came to office and launched his “war on corruption.”

Sandinista Renovation Movement

President: Edmundo Jarquín

Edmundo Jarquín was the MRS vice-presidential candidate. He took over as presidential candidate after the initial nominee, Herty Lewites, died suddenly of a heart attack on 3 July 2006. Jarquín founded in 1974, together with Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, editor of newspaper La Prensa, the Democratic Liberation Union (UDEL) in the struggle against the Somoza regime. Jarquín was head of the Ministry of Foreign Cooperation between 1981–84 and ambassador to Mexico (1984–88) and to Spain (1988–1990). In the 1990 elections he gained a seat in the National Assembly. Jarquín worked as an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) official from 1992 to 2005 when he resigned and joined the MRS electoral alliance.

Vice-president: Carlos Mejía Godoy

Carlos Mejía Godoy is an internationally known and popular Nicaraguan singer-songwriter who stepped in as the vice-presidential candidate after Lewites died. Mejía Godoy is the father of Camilo Mejía, one of the most famous conscientious objectors to the US war in Iraq.

Contending parties and electoral alliances

Alternative for Change

The Alternative for Change ( es, Alternativa por el Cambio - AC) was part of the MRS Alliance for a few months, but decided to go alone to the elections with presidential candidate Edén Pastora. Alternative for Change was founded by dissidents from the Nicaraguan Party of the Christian Path (CCN) and a few stray Sandinistas, which first went under the name Christian Alternative led by former Sandinista legislator Orlando Tardencilla.

Constitutionalist Liberal Party

The Constitutionalist Liberal Party ( es, Partido Liberal Constitucionalista - PLC) is in alliance with the Worker's Permanent Congress (CPT), a civil organisation formed around several smaller parties, labor unions and political movements.

Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance

The Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance ( es, Alianza Liberal Nicaragüense - ALN) is formed by dissidents of the Constitutionalist Liberal Party and the Conservative Party (PC), Alliance for the Republic (APRE), Independent Liberal Party (PLI), Nicaraguan Resistance Party (PRN) and the Nicaraguan Party of the Christian Path (CCN).

Sandinista National Liberation Front

After the break-up of the FSLN-Convergence alliance in 2005, the Sandinista National Liberation Front ( es, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional - FSLN) formed the United Nicaragua Triumphs alliance. The allied political forces of the FSLN are; Yapti Tasba Masraka Nanih Aslatakanka (YATAMA), the indigenous party from Nicaragua's Caribbean coast, Christian Democratic Union (UDC), Christian Unity Movement (MUC), Popular Conservative Alliance (APC) and a few smaller organisations of dissidents from the Liberal and Conservative Party and a fraction of members from the Nicaraguan Resistance Party, including members of the PLN, Somoza's Liberal Party.

Sandinista Renovation Movement

The Sandinista Renovation Movement ( es, Movimiento de Renovación Sandinista - MRS), also known as the Herty 2006 Alliance in allusion to Herty Lewites, the alliance original presidential candidate, runs in this election together with the Social Christian Party (PSC), Nicaraguan Socialist Party (PSN), Ecologist Green Party of Nicaragua (PVEN), Party for Citizen Action (PAC), the Movement for the Rescue of the Sandinismo and the Change-Reflection-Ethic-Action Movement (CREA). Various social groups are also part of the alliance, the most organized and belligerent of which is the Autonomous Women’s Movement.

Campaign

Primaries

Sandinistas

The Sandinista Assembly - FSLN's highest decision-making body- was held on 26 February in Managua. Lewites had announced that he planned a march to the site of the event with his followers in support of his running against Daniel Ortega for the candidacy. Some 200 meters from the gates of the “Olofito” convention center where the Sandinista Assembly was meeting, they were stopped by a larger pro-Ortega demonstration. For several minutes both bands literally went at each other with fists, stones, and even clubs. The police had to intervene, placing themselves between the rival bands. In the Assembly, the official leadership responded by expelling Herty Lewites and his campaign chief Víctor Hugo Tinoco from the party.

A few days later, on 6 March, an extraordinary FSLN congress was held in Matagalpa

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