WORLD : Chamorro’s Military Veto Upheld

President Violeta Chamorro today won a battle over funding for her country’s armed forces when the National Assembly voted to support her veto of a huge army spending cut.

After an all-night session, the assembly voted 69 to 21 with one abstention to uphold Chamorro’s veto, her first since she took office last April ending a decade of rule by the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front.

In the vote Chamorro was supported by the 39 Sandinista deputies in the Assembly as well as the majority of deputies from the ruling National Opposition Union alliance.

Some UNO members, however, said the veto went against the alliance’s commitment to demilitarize Nicaragua after eight years of war between the Sandinistas and Contra rebels.

Last week the UNO majority voted to cut almost $20 million from the $78.6 million alloted by the president to the army in the $499 million 1991 budget.