Excerpt
RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): It's election time in Nicaragua. After almost 30 years of democracy, Nicaraguans are still passionate about their politics. Turnouts remain high, upwards of 90 percent.
Daniel Ortega is president of Nicaragua, again, and a familiar face from the final years of the Cold War. He came to power as a leader of the far-left Sandinista Revolution. He was Ronald Reagan's Central American nemesis, fighting off a U.S.-backed army after taking power in 1979.
But after losing a bid for re-election in 1990, it took Ortega 16 years to win back the presidency in 2006. Now he's using all the tools of incumbency to keep the job, even engineering a change in the constitution to allow a run for a third term.
That sparked violent backlash, put down by the president's security forces. Opposition candidates, like Fabio Gadea, have rushed to characterize the constitutional change as Ortega's betrayal of the revolution he led to overthrow Nicaragua's longtime dictator, Anastasio Somoza.
Note to U.S. citizens, 90% election turnout? We should be ashamed about our dismal election turnouts.
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