Nicaraguans Cast Votes against US Intervention
A MADRE Statement
November 7, 2006
With over 60 percent of the votes counted, it appears that FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front) candidate Daniel Ortega is close to winning the Nicaraguan presidential election in the first round. MADRE, an international women's human rights organization, views this outcome as a resounding rejection of US interference in Nicaraguan politics. Throughout the campaign season, the Bush Administration has blatantly violated Nicaraguan sovereignty, calling on past and present politicos—among them US Ambassador to Nicaragua, Paul Trivelli; former US Lt. Col. Oliver North; and Florida Governor Jeb Bush—to dispatch explicit threats to the Nicaraguan people. Above all, what Nicaraguans heard was that the US was poised to block remittances (money sent from family members living abroad represents 20 percent of the country's GDP, or over $1 billion ), and withhold critical aid to Nicaragua, if they elected Ortega. Nicaragua is already the second–poorest country in the western hemisphere, in large part due to US economic sanctions and the devastation wrought by the brutal US–led contra war in the 1980s, as well as ongoing neoliberal economic prescriptions established in the early 1990s.
Ortega—while he has since aligned himself with conservative factions of the Catholic Church, embraced neoliberal economic reforms, and supported a complete ban on abortion passed just weeks ago—was president of Nicaragua during the 1980s following the Sandinista ouster of the Somoza dictatorship, and implemented national reforms in an attempt to guarantee healthcare, education, and social justice for all Nicaraguans.
Following Nicaragua's presidential elections, MADRE, which has partnered with community–based groups in Nicaragua since the early 1980s, will continue to:
- Support educational and leadership programs for Nicaraguan youth whose turnout in Sunday's elections reflects a spirit of hopefulness, not despair, about Nicaragua’s future, and a strong desire—much like that of young people worldwide—to articulate their own destiny;
- Promote Indigenous Peoples' collective rights—under attack by multinational corporations and threatened by neoliberal free-trade agreements such as CAFTA—particularly in the Atlantic Coast region; and
- Support Nicaraguan women's human rights activists—long considered the vanguard of global feminism—including their critical work to promote sexual rights, reproductive rights and health, and combat religious fundamentalism, in the wake of a complete ban on abortion. The increasing influence of religious fundamentalists in Nicaragua's political sphere was seen last month when Catholic and Evangelical clergy lobbied for a bill to outlaw therapeutic abortion (used to save a pregnant woman's life). Conservative religious leaders pressed for a vote before the November 5 elections in order to cow National Assembly members and presidential candidates afraid of alienating socially conservative voters into supporting the legislation. The bill passed with a vote of 52-0 on October 26.