Nicaragua’s Morales Opposes Ortega
Re-Election Bid
(Update1)
By Blake Schmidt
(Bloomberg) - Nicaraguan Vice
President Jaime Morales said he opposes
President Daniel Ortega’s bid to change the
constitution to allow re-election and will
step down if Ortega stays in power after his
term expires in 2012.
“Re-elections have spawned dictatorships,
tyrannies, confrontations and civil war,”
Morales, 72, said in an interview at the
InterContinental Hotel in Managua today. “I
think frequent change of power is
preferable.”
Morales, who isn’t a member of any political
party, was a negotiator for the U.S.-backed
Contra rebels during their 1980s battle
against Ortega’s Soviet-backed Sandinista
government. He joined Ortega for the 2006
electoral campaign to create a
reconciliation government.
Ortega, 63, who also served as president
from 1985 to 1990, proposed a referendum in
July on whether he should be allowed to run
for another five-year term. No date has been
set for the vote. If it succeeds, Ortega
would still need lawmakers to change the
constitution to allow presidents to serve
consecutive terms and more than two terms in
total.
Ortega governs from Morales’s former home,
which he confiscated during his first term
as president. It is now the Sandinista party
headquarters.
Zelaya Issue
Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was ousted
in a June 28 coup after the Supreme Court
ruled his push for a poll on whether to hold
a referendum on constitutional reform was
illegal. His reforms faced staunch
opposition from business leaders, who
accused Zelaya of trying to stay in power.
Ortega, who has given Zelaya refuge in
Managua since his ouster, said a coup plot
against him would fail because he has the
military’s backing.
The head of Nicaragua’s Superior Private
Business Council, the country’s biggest
business chamber, said he also opposes
Ortega’s re-election bid.
“It’s not the appropriate moment for this
type of reform, as polarized as the country
is,” Jose Adan Aguerri said in an interview
today.
Nicaragua has yet to resolve transparency
concerns triggered by fraud allegations in
November 2008 mayoral elections, which
prompted U.S. and European aid cuts,
opposition legislator Eduardo Montealegre
said.
Montealegre, who lost the Managua mayoral
race in that election, says Ortega is trying
to wrangle up enough votes from opposition
legislators to pass his reforms. The
Sandinistas are a minority in congress.
|
