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CENTRAL AMERICA |
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Nicaragua
Court Opens Way For Ortega Re-Election
MANAGUA (Reuters) - Nicaragua's Supreme
Court lifted a constitutional barrier on
Monday to President Daniel Ortega seeking
re-election, opening the way to the leftist
running for another term in the 2011
election.
The court's constitutional arm issued a
ruling blocking restrictions on a president
running for another term, following a
petition from Ortega and a group of mayors
last week, and the country's electoral court
said it would comply with the move.
The Supreme Court ruling requires formal
approval by 16 state judges but the head of
the constitutional courtroom, Francisco
Rosales, said the ruling was expected to
stand.
The move by the country's highest legal
power means Ortega could run as a candidate
in the 2011 presidential election without
having to seek national assembly backing to
change the constitution or hold a public
referendum on the issue.
Latin American countries are increasingly
wrestling with the issue of presidential
term limits as leftists such as Venezuela's
self-styled socialist President Hugo Chavez
seek to stay in power as long as they can
win elections.
Central America is locked in its worst
political crisis in decades after Honduras
toppled and exiled President Manuel Zelaya
in June after that country's Supreme Court
said his bid to seek support for lifting
term limits was illegal.
Ortega -- a left-wing former guerrilla
fighter whose Sandinista rebels fought
U.S.-backed government forces during a Cold
War-era civil war -- said in July Nicaragua
should move to remove term limits for
presidents and mayors after the issue drove
neighboring Honduras to mount a coup.
Ortega first took power after Nicaragua's
1979 revolution and was formally elected
president in 1984. After his Sandinista
party lost power in 1990, the opposition
banned re-election with a clause in the 1995
constitution.
Ortega returned to power in 2007 after
running on a platform of reconciliation but
presidents are barred from running
consecutively or serving more than two
terms.
Both Ortega and Zelaya are close to Chavez,
a vehement critic of the United States who
could rule for decades after winning a
referendum this year letting him run for
re-election as often as he likes.
In January, Chavez ally Evo Morales of
Bolivia won a referendum to let him run for
another five-year term. Ecuador's President
Rafael Correa has also engineered
constitutional changes to let him hold
office for two more four-year terms.
Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, a Nobel
Peace Prize winner, is serving a second term
thanks to a constitutional change and
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe may seek a
third term after a similar move allowed him
a second term.
"If Uribe does it, it's OK, if Arias does
it, it's OK. If we do it ... then it's bad,"
Rosales told Nicaraguan TV.
Changing the constitution in Nicaragua would
have required approval by two-thirds of the
one-chamber national assembly, where Ortega
does not have a majority. His support within
the Supreme Court is helped by a split in
the opposition.
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