|
MANAGUA: Managua Wednesday threatened to dismiss opposition lawmakers from Congress if they pass a law annulling the November 9 local elections, which they claim the ruling Sandinista Party soundly won by widespread fraud.
As government followers partied in the streets after the Supreme Electoral Council (SLC) ruled late Thursday that the Sandinistas won more than two-thirds (105) of the 146 mayoral races, opposition members warned of trouble ahead.
"This situation gives rise to total political anarchy because all legal measures are being violated," right-wing Liberal Party leader and former president Arnoldo Aleman told AFP.
The opposition accuse President Daniel Ortega, a former rebel who led Nicaragua from 1985-1990, of steering the country to the left in unison with his close allies in communist Cuba and President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.
Thousands of Sandinistas rallied in the streets Friday celebrating their overwhelming victory in the elections.
Many pro-Sandinista activists were toting home-made mortars and clubs in what opponents charge is a bid to deter Ortega foes from demonstrating against the alleged fraud in the poorest Central American nation.
Opposition lawmakers are majority in Congress and after crying foul when the SLC gave its final vote tally, they announced a move to pass a law annulling the mayoral vote, setting a debate on the proposal for Tuesday.
Ortega's Sandinista Party quickly responded threatening to sack all opposition members from Congress if they should pass such a law some lawmakers believe would be unconstitutional.
"Whoever promotes an initiative of that sort can even lose their standing as (Congress) deputies, because it's considered a crime against the constitution," Sandinista leader Jose Figueroa.
Supreme Court Justice Rafael Solis also dismissed the opposition's notion, saying Congress had no authority to annul an election.
Any decision to annul an election would have to come from the SCE, which is currently Sandinista-heavy in its makeup.
Aleman said the opposition has "incontrovertible proof of clumsy, shameless and massive fraud" carried out by the SCE in coordination with the Sandinistas.
The opposition was particularly stung by the loss of Managua, the major prize in the November 9 vote which the Sandinistas have now won three times. The mayor-elect in the capital is former boxing champ Alexis Arguello.
The Roman Catholic Church has demanded a recount of the November 9 vote and has called for a pray-for-peace procession in Managua on Sunday, which government officials have promptly branded a political not a religious march.
The United Nations, European Union and United States and several Nicaraguan NGOs have expressed concern about the level of transparency in the voting, increasingly seen as a referendum on the performance of Ortega, 63.
"Nobody is the winner with what has happened here. Not Nicaragua, not Central America," a European diplomat told AFP privately, warning: "This is potentially dangerous ... and the international community's influence is limited."
Nicaragua on Friday also lost a censure motion it filed against the Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza of the Washington-based Organization of American States for questioning the results of Nicaragua's election.
With only Venezuela supporting it, Nicaragua had to withdraw the censure motion branding Insulza's comments "interference" in its internal affairs.
The incident at the OAS prompted former Nicaraguan foreign minister Francisco Aguirre to comment that Ortega had "shot himself in the foot."
"If this is left to fester," Aleman said of the rising tension in the country, "I don't know how it will turn out.
"People live not on illusions and words, they live with reality and now I can sense anguish, fear and anarchy."
- AFP/yb
|
|
|
