Observer Reports of 2011 Nicaragua Elections

In addition to my blogpost regarding the rigging of the November 2011 elections of Nicaragua you'll find the reports of the three major foreign observers below. All three mention numerous serious irregularities and it is unlikely they coordinated their findings at forehand. These reports are not easy to find and hardly linked to. That's why I put them here. They demonstrate the serious rigging of the elections.

Something Smelly in Nicaragua...The Rigging of the Fraudulent 2011 Elections in Nicaragua Unveiled

Daniel Ortega - Red thumb up!

I did blog already here about FSLN pre-election fraud on the November 2011 Nicaragua presidential elections. It's not the first time that election fraud occurred in Nicaragua. The 2008 Municipal election fraud had serious consequences; lots of foreign economic aids were suspended.   After 100 % of the votes of this year's elections were counted, the Electoral Council said that Ortega had 62.46% of the vote and the Liberal Party's Fabio Gadea had 31%. While Ortega won the 2011 elections with a staggering 62.46 % of all votes, I would like to point out here all irregularities and suspected fraud. For a start, here is what all accredited and unaccredited, domestic and foreign observers had to say about the elections:

ALBA & Petrocaribe...a Timebomb?

There's this sword of Damocles hanging over the economies of the countries that are profiting from Venezuela's ALBA/PetroCaribe program. The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) was established on December 14, 2004 by Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro. Venezuela and Cuba sought to create a regional alliance committed to social, political, and economic cooperation and equality. ALBA says it offers an alternative to free trade accords (FTAA), on the basis of three principles: (1) opposition to free–market economic reforms; (2) not limiting the regulatory action of the State in favor of economic liberalization; (3) harmonizing relations between the State and the market.

Ortega's 2011 Campaign Strategy

Daniel Ortega

I agree greatly on the opinion that Ortega is probably going to win this year's election, simply because he's the least worst choice for most Nicaraguans. Despite the widespread corruption, Ortega's illegal acts, breakdown of the democracy, his pacts, his orchestrated election fraud and so on. Remember, it's the wealthy and educated Nicaraguan (and gringo) who can afford to look further in Nicaragua's future and to fear for the deterioration of its democracy; for the surviving Nicaraguan the foreseeable future is probably much shorter and therefore he's obviously more interested in the short term gains that Ortega is offering. These gains are a growing economy (4.5% in 2010 and about the same for 2011), huge ALBA monies still coming in, social programs, friendly investors climate and an upgrade of Nicaragua's infrastructure.

Was Simon Bolívar "the" Libertador of Venezuela?

Hugo Chávez
(Courtesy of Agência Brasil)

Hugo Chávez' great inspiration and example - the Venezuelan aristocrat Símon Bolívar - is undoubtedly South America's most famous Libertador. Together with other Libertadores, he led Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela to independence. However, he wasn't the first liberator nor the only one. All together about 14 Libertadores freed South America from Spanish and Portuguese dominion. Today, Venezuelans are still very proud that Bolívar liberated that many countries in South America and in these liberated countries he is still honored very much. Many, many biographies have been written about Bolívar and their hagiography level is usually much higher than the historical level. But let us take a closer look to what Simón Bolivar really meant for Venezuela's independence.