In #Nicaragua, hopes of a new canal revive a ghost town and spawn dreams

In Nicaragua, hopes of a new canal revive a ghost town and spawn dreams

Kansas City Star

Shimmering mirage-like is an even greater yearning: Nicaragua again talks of building an inter-oceanic waterway to compete with the Panama Canal, with one terminus here. The waterway would allow ships to transit from the Atlantic up the San Juan River ...

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Sidestepping Ahmadinejad in Managua

Honduras Weekly

President Porfirio Lobo has confirmed that he will attend the January 10 inauguration of President Daniel Ortega, who was re-elected on November 6, 2011, to a second consecutive term of office as leader of Nicaragua. ... Read more

Another Somoza eyes the presidency in Nicaragua

GlobalPost - ELMER MARTINEZ/AFP/Getty Images) MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Are Nicaraguans ready for another Somoza? The Somoza family ruled this poor Central American nation from 1936 to 1979, a period marked by widespread corruption and crackdowns on political ...  Read more

Obama's Latin American Policy Is Dangerously Out of Touch

Fox News  By Roger Noriega - As Congress, Republican presidential candidates, and much of the U.S., South American, and European media are sounding the alarm on suspicious activities by Iran and Hezbollah in Latin America, the State Department is hitting the snooze button.   Read more

Democratic Speed Bumps In Latin America

News dominica

Eurasia Review Additionally, November's presidential elections in Nicaragua and Guatemala (and recent polling on Mexico's 2012 election) reinforce the notion that many in the region have grown skeptical about democratic governance. Many reasons could explain this ...  Read more New regional grouping holds summit News dominica The USA Lacks a Clear and Consistent Agenda in Latin America Mexidata.info Iran's economic sway in Latin America Tehran Times Center for Research on Globalization -MiamiHerald.com all 30 news articles »

Daniel Ortega's New Kind of Coup

Project Syndicate - Carlos Fernando Chamorro. MANAGUA – Amid accusations of fraud and expressions of serious doubt by international observers, Daniel Ortega's re-election as Nicaragua's president constitutes a new kind of “incumbent's” coup – one that establishes a dangerous precedent for Latin America. What to do about it poses a grave dilemma for the Organization of American States (OAS).  Read more

Dark Days for Democracy in Nicaragua

Heritage.org (blog) - With his win in the November 6 election, Daniel Ortega secured his third presidential term in Nicaragua. While few would deny the leader's popularity, thanks in large part to aid from Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, the legitimacy of his position has been ...  Read more Nicaragua's Opposition Asks The World Not To Recognize The Re-Election of Ortega Inside Costa Rica Calls for new Nicaragua elections Sky News Australia all 12 news articles »

Controversy arises in Nicaraguan presidential elections

my.hsj.org - The 2011 Nicaraguan presidential elections sprouted much controversy on whether Daniel Ortega is a fraud or not. In retrospect, there are many keys that lead me to believe Ortega is hiding something about his re-election. Daniel Ortega is Nicaragua's ...  Read more

Trickery and victory in Nicaragua

MiamiHerald.com

BY CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER - He won, because there is now a generation of young Nicaraguans to whom the civil war of the 1980s and the disasters provoked by the Sandinistas in that era of crime and collectivist passion seem remote and foreign. He won, because Ortega skillfully ...  Read more

Electoral Transparency Needed In Nicaragua

Voice of America -  Electoral Transparency Needed In Nicaragua We agree with the European Union electoral mission that the Supreme Electoral Council did not operate in a transparent and impartial manner. Nicaragua's Supreme Electoral Council has declared ...  Read more

Reality of corrupt Ortega bites Nicaragua

Boston Herald - Nicaragua may be the only country in the world that's perpetually under a full moon, so it's no surprise that the big news out of last Sunday's presidential election was not that incumbent Daniel Ortega was piling up suspicious ...  

In Nicaragua, fears that Ortega will be the new Somoza

MiamiHerald.com

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Ghosts of tyrants and dictators past haunt Nicaragua, a land of volcanoes and political curses, and some say the nation hasn't broken its jinx.   Read more

Nicaragua's slip back to authoritarianism?

CNN (blog) -Under the Nicaraguan constitution, the legislature alone elects the Supreme Court justices and the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) justices, who are charged with organizing elections. But in January 2010 Ortega changed that. He issued a decree that allowed him to extend the terms of friendly judges. When Liberal judges protested and boycotted the Supreme Court, Ortega replaced seven of them. Without anyone to disbar him, he ran in November 2011 and won 63% of the vote.  Read more

The Rise of Ortega-ismo

www.foreignpolicy.com BY MALCOLM BEITH - Latin America's savviest left-wing firebrand shakes his fist with one hand while accepting donors' cash with the other -- and he's about to consolidate power even further in a bold stroke of undemocratic electioneering.  Read more

OAS makes bad “error” in Nicaragua

MiamiHerald.com - BY ANDRES OPPENHEIMER - What was most surprising about Nicaragua’s election on Sunday was not that President Daniel Ortega was reelected after a highly questionable electoral process, but that his victory got a seemingly unconditional blessing from 34-country Organization of American States chief Jose Miguel Insulza..  Read more

Ortega loses! (Wait a second…)

By Margaret McCarthy  This headline should make you look twice for two reasons. The first, of course, being that President Ortega did not actually lose the Nicaraguan elections last Sunday. He won his third term as president by a landslide, according to the numbers posted on La Prensa.

The second reason this headline is ridiculous is that the kind of credibility which a leader who is elected in Ortega’s fashion should lose has not been lost. In October 2009, a Corte Suprema ruling—by the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) dominated court—decreed that the constitutional limitations restricting an individual to two terms as president, as well as outlawing consecutive presidential terms, was unconstitutional. (Subsequently, Ortega ignored the legislature’s outcry that the supreme court did not have the authority to overturn such a provision, and in a related ruling in January 2010, Ortega extended some of the FSLN judges’ terms on the court, which effectively stacked the court in his favor). Ortega was elected Sunday for his third term, and will hold this post consecutive to his second.  Read more

Nicaragua's presidential election

Nicaragua's presidential election - The Economist

The world’s romance with his Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) has soured. Whereas Mr Ortega was once a symbol of victory over tyranny, he is now a cheat. Local elections in 2008 saw vast fraud, with the FSLN wrongly awarded some 40 mayoralties. Foreign donors suspended over $100m in protest. This year the signs are ominous. Voting cards have not been delivered in some areas, and accreditation of opposition parties’ agents has been slow. The government has admitted a few EU election monitors, but no independent domestic observers.   Read more

Amid "irregularities", Nicaragua's Ortega awaits re-election

monstersandcritics.com - by Gabriela Selser. President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua is leading in polls ahead of Sunday's presidential election, despite international concerns about transparency and legitimacy.  Read more

Despite Nicaragua's Constitution, Ortega headed for re-election

BY TIM JOHNSON - MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS.  MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Nicaragua's Constitution bars re-election for politicians, but that's proved no obstacle to President Daniel Ortega, the Sandinista leader, who's widely expected to win another term in office in voting on Sunday.  Read more

Why Nicaragua is ready to re-elect Daniel Ortega

BBC News

BBC News - By Tim Rogers. For some 30 years, Daniel Ortega and his erstwhile Sandinista revolutionaries have been loathed by Nicaragua's traditional economic elite. But with presidential elections due on 6 November, there appears to be only one thing some business leaders fear more than an Ortega re-election victory and that is an Ortega defeat....  Read more