Ortega Concedes Defeat in Nicaragua

AP | 11/06/01 | ELOY O. AGUILAR

[JohnHuang2]

I know you'll like this...hehe

[Bubba_Leroy]

He's a hellovalot more graceful of a loser than Algore was. If he followed Algore's playbook, they would be recounting votes until the end of the year.

[kattracks]

Nicaragua's Ortega concedes election defeat

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (Reuters) - Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega has conceded defeat in presidential elections he had hoped would return him to power 11 years after his revolutionary government was voted out of office.

"We will respect the people's mandate," Ortega said on Monday, adding that the elections had been "extraordinary" with "a massive and exemplary turnout."

Opinion polls had shown Ortega running neck and neck with conservative ruling party candidate Enrique Bolanos going into Sunday's election and there were concerns that a slow vote and a tight race could cause tensions, or even post-election violence.

But Ortega said he fully accepted the vote returns that had him trailing Bolanos by several percentage points

[calvin sun]

Please help me out. The last I heard of Mr. Ortega was YEARS ago, in another election. He lost to a ?Violet/Viola Chamorros (?sp?)? the conservative? Whatever happened to her. Is the gentleman who defeated Mr. Ortega from the same party as this woman? Thanks.

[Viet Vet in Augusta GA]

Ortega & Gore, political consultants, are pleased to announce the opening of their new office...

[JohnHuang2]

I know you'll like this...hehe

[itsinthebag]

"Another commie bites the DUST!

No wonder Castro, that other thug-murderer-terrorist, never holds free elections. ;^)

Excellent observation John. If free elections were ever held, the citizenry would kick his commie posterior off the island for sure.

[JohnHuang2]

;^)

[JohnHuang2]

No, I didn't forget ya, good buddy...

[Antoninus]

Communists never really concede. They just look for other means to take power...

[epluribus_2]

(translated from spanish by Babelfish) "Uh, Enrique... the situation has changed." "You're not telling me that you're withdrawing your concession" "Now don't get snippy with me..."

[Dan from Michigan]

YES!

[GEC]

Oh Daniel,

You're once, twice, three times a commie.....

And I ha-a--ate your guts.

Go to Cuba, you scumbag.

[Cyber Liberty]

There's one in every crowd....

[rightwing2]

YEAH BABY!!! Time to return to the ashheap of history, Mr. Ortega!! This is perhaps the first foreign policy triumph of the Bush Administration. Got to give them credit where credit is due. After mucking it up very badly with the humiliating groveling, apologies, and general appeasement to the Butchers of Beijing over the P-3 incident, they really needed it.

The Bush Administration's negotiations to give in to the Russian position and merely modify rather than discard the ABM Treaty to provide for only a limited national missile defense under the Treaty rather than a comprehensive poses a scary prospect. The Bush plan to give away the store to the Russians by agreeing to abolish 80% of the US strategic nuclear arsenal in return for this Russian agreement looks set to present the Bush Administration a second major foreign policy failure of collosal proportions.

Let's hope they "win" the war in Afghanistan and score a second major foreign policy victory.

[thucydides]

One wonders how much of a communist or how much of an opportunist Ortega was. He agreed to an election, which was something communists never do - he was stupid enough to think he would win. Well, didn't all the celebrities and democrats in Congress support him? Now he tries to run as a moderate, but the public isn't buying it...

[Steven W.]

Violetta Chamorro won the first free election against Ortega. She only served one term as, in reality, she ran largely to avenge her husband's execution by Ortega and to bring Democracy, albeit Nicaraguan form of such, to their country and force the Sandinistas from power. As I recall, her party won the next time, though another candidate, and, since then, other party's candidates won the presidency. I'm reminded that during the age of the Sandinistas they setup approx. 30 different political parties so that (a) any votes would be fractured and (b) most of the others all reported directly to Ortega. That was effective in pre-Arias sponsored elections which were never recognized by the US. In intervening years I've not been as impressed with these other ruling parties as I was by the conservatives who wrestled control of the country from the scumbag Sandinistas, but, as with this time, a vote against Daniel Ortega is a vote for continued freedom in that land.

[itsinthebag]

"(translated from spanish by Babelfish) "Uh, Enrique... the situation has changed." "You're not telling me that you're withdrawing your concession" "Now don't get snippy with me..."

Hmmmmm?? Let's see . . . where have I heard this before? HA-HA!!

[wardaddy]

Bump!!!!!!!!.......I'm suprised......I thought the psuedo revolutionary was favored......

[Steven W.]

Ortega was a devout communist. However, he was facing political pressure of the worst kind because the only way he could get the contras to lay down their weapons was to hold elections and the commie-libs in this country and elsewhere had not only propped him up as a lover of Democracy (through rigged elections) but they all thought he'd win, all being totally duped by their own commie based propaganda. Once he/they announced he'd go along with it, we forced him to hold a free election, something the commie-libs didn't think was in the cards but, there again, had no choice but to agree to. That was the point where Oscar Arias finally served some good and gave the commie-libs everything they'd always said they were for, except the truth prevailed and the Sandinistas were forced from power.