Recount Confirms Aleman as New President of Nicaragua
Election officials Friday declared conservative Arnoldo Aleman the winner of Nicaragua’s presidential election, making his victory official after a recount.
The final vote wasn’t close: 904,908 votes for Aleman, of the Liberal Alliance party, compared with 669,443 for Daniel Ortega, a former leftist president defeated in 1990 by a coalition led by Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who by law could not run for reelection.
Aleman’s share of the vote amounted to about 51%, compared with Ortega’s 37.7%. Aleman needed 45% to avoid a second-round runoff.
The Supreme Electoral Council’s confirmation of Aleman’s victory came nearly three weeks after the elections.
Officials reexamined the vote after Ortega’s Sandinista National Liberation Front alleged irregularities in the election.
Ortega had claimed that the results posted at the country’s 9,000 polling places sometimes varied from the results sent to the computation center.
Aleman is scheduled to take office Jan. 10.
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