Nicaraguan Economists Flunk Bolaños
Six months before Nicaraguan President Enrique Bolaños concludes his five-year term of office, independent economists agreed on Monday in this capital that his performance has been a failure.

The opinions of three experts were published on Monday in El Nuevo Diario newspaper, which said the president obtained the "disapproved" category in the assessment of his performance.

According to experts Nestor Avendaño, Sergio Santamaria, and Cirilo Otero, the president that will take power in January 2007, will inherit a huge social debt, because Bolaños just responded to the orders from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), they asserted.

Otero asserted that the president was never interested in changing the social and economic reality of families, and drastically reduced public investment in basic services like education, health, and social security.

Non-fulfilment of the promise to create 100,000 new jobs and build a similar number of houses is also among the failures attributed to the government of the New Age, a name the president gave the term of office started on January 10, 2002.

The only aspect in favor of Bolaños is that he knew how to maintain macroeconomic stability with a high level of international reserves and relatively low inflation, they said.

This apparently positive assessment crumbles, however, when Avendaño clarified that the mentioned stability was only good to favor the largest capital investors.