MANAGUA - Daniel Ortega won a fourth consecutive presidential term on Monday in elections denounced by the United States as a "sham," with the long-term Nicaraguan leader deriding his opponents -- mos
MANAGUA - Daniel Ortega won a fourth consecutive presidential term on Monday in elections denounced by the United States as a "sham," with the long-term Nicaraguan leader deriding his opponents -- most of them jailed or in exile -- as "terrorists."
"What Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice-President Rosario Murillo, orchestrated today was a pantomime election that was neither free nor fair, and most certainly not democratic," the president said, adding the pair now run Nicaragua "as autocrats." Some 150 people have been jailed since then, including 39 opposition figures rounded up since June in the run-up to the vote.Polling stations closed Sunday after 11 hours of voting under the watchful eye of 30,000 police and soldiers.
Fear vied with apathy among the 4.4 million Nicaraguans eligible to cast votes in the country of 6.5 million. There were protests Sunday in Costa Rica, Spain, the United States and Guatemala, countries that are home to thousands of Nicaraguan exiles.The election took place without international observers and with most foreign media denied access to the country.
A firebrand Marxist in his youth, Ortega ruled Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, after the guerrilla ousting of US-backed dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle.Jailed opposition figures, including journalists, are accused of unspecified attacks on Nicaragua's "sovereignty" under a law passed by a parliament dominated by Ortega allies, who also control the judiciary and electoral body.
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