Managua Frees U.S. Funds for Poll Monitors

The Sandinista government agreed Sunday to an immediate transfer of $1.5 million in U.S. funds tied up in Nicaragua’s central bank to an institute that will train opposition poll watchers for the upcoming Nicaraguan elections, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced.

Carter, who mediated and co-signed the agreement after three days of talks here, also announced that President Daniel Ortega has promised to issue “private instructions and public declarations” against intimidation of opposition poll watchers and to allow a dozen U.S. lawmakers to monitor the Feb. 25 vote.

Carter’s visit came amid assertions by the Bush Administration and the National Opposition Union (UNO), the U.S.-backed anti-Sandinista coalition, that intimidation and harassment of the opposition are systematic and raise questions about the fairness of the election.

Carter said he sees “no evidence” that the revolutionary government is preparing vote fraud to reelect Ortega. But he said any obstacles to opposition monitors could cloud the validity of the vote.

“If, on election night, we find that a substantial number of poll watchers have been intimidated so they can’t come to these remote polling places, then I think the returns from those places will be seriously in doubt,” Carter said. “And if the vote is very close and you have a substantial number of those (places) that could have cast the election to the (Sandinistas), I would declare that the results of the election were not certifiable.”

Carter said he used that argument in telling Sandinista leaders that full coverage by the opposition of all 4,394 polling stations was in their interest.

The agreement releases money appropriated Oct. 21 by Congress for the Institute for Electoral Promotion and Training. In return, the Sandinistas were assured that the money will not be used for the campaign of UNO presidential candidate Violeta Barrios de Chamorro.

The Sandinistas had blocked the funds for more than a month on grounds that the institute had failed to undergo the required, lengthy process of registering as a nonprofit organization.

Ortega’s decision to admit U.S. congressional observers was a step back from his insistence that the Bush Administration first stop all funding of the Nicaraguan rebels.