Nicaragua's Disputed Election Result

James Bosworth
AQ Web Exclusive
November 10, 2011

Jairo Cajina/Presidencia de Nicaragua

Fabio Gadea announced on Monday that he would not recognize the election results published by Nicaragua's Consejo Supremo Electoral (Supreme Electoral Council—CSE), declaring the results part of a "fraud." The CSE, which should be an independent institution but is widely acknowledged to be controlled by President Daniel Ortega, says that the president was reelected by a surprising margin, winning over 60 percent of the vote compared to Gadea's 30 percent.

Most polls prior to the election suggested that Ortega would win a plurality of the vote. However, a majority was unexpected and topping 60 percent seems a stretch even under the most favorable scenarios for Nicaragua's polarizing president. His candidacy was already questionable with re-election being prohibited by the Nicaraguan constitution. Meanwhile, the government restricted international observation and rejected accreditations for several civil society organizations. On election day, the Organization of American States (OAS) and other organizations were prevented from entering a number of voting locations, preventing them from monitoring as they had hoped. The organizations that did monitor the vote, including several of the restricted civil society organizations who braved potential prosecution by the government for their efforts, reported problems and irregularities with ballots and process that should be investigated.

What happens next? The hemisphere has a history of recent contested and rejected election results. Sometimes, they are due to fraud. In others, the opposition complained unfairly. In others, there were irregularities, but perhaps not enough to warrant calling the election anti-democratic. Should Gadea continue to reject these results, looking at previous examples across this spectrum might be a good place to start.

Perhaps the most famous example is the 2000 election in Peru. President Alberto Fujimori ran for a third term, which many viewed as unconstitutional. Fujimori was able to run because he controlled the electoral and judicial institutions, blocking any legal objections. Fujimori then engaged in a campaign that included media manipulation, censorship, bribery and outright fraud. Opposition candidate Alejandro Toledo rejected the results and refused to participate in the second round, leading protests instead. Later that year, Fujimori was forced to resign over corruption scandals including bribing politicians. Toledo would go on to win the new elections when they were held.

However, the events in Peru are the exception, not the rule.

Click here to read the full article at www.AmericasQuarterly.org.

James Bosworth is a freelance writer and the author of Bloggings by Boz. He splits his time between Arlington, VA and Managua, Nicaragua.

See more in:  Nicaragua, Democracy & Elections