Managua, Nicaragua – Ulises Fernandez, a teacher- turned-squatter, lives with 26 other families in a buckled and broken building condemned more than three decades ago after Nicaragua’s devastating 1972 earthquake.
He lost his job in 1990, the year Daniel Ortega fell from power. The new government of Violeta Chamorro fired him and others who didn’t have university degrees.
He moved into “The Ruins,” a shattered Art Deco building of twisted metal and crumbling concrete behind the president’s office. Life has been a struggle just to find enough to eat.
“It’s like we don’t have a right to life,” Fernandez said. “We’ve always planned to leave, but there’s no money.”
Fernandez and his family voted for Ortega in Sunday’s election – among the impoverished Nicaraguans who make up the former Marxist revolutionary’s base.
Ortega, who fought off a U.S.-backed insurgency in the 1980s, won Nicaragua’s presidential election, according to results released Tuesday.
Harvard-educated Eduardo Montealegre immediately conceded the election following the latest tally,
He pledged to spend the next five years ensuring that Ortega stayed true to his promises to support free trade and promote private business.
With more than 90 percent of the vote counted, Ortega had 38 percent compared with 29 percent for Montealegre. A candidate must get at least 35 percent and have a 5-percentage point lead to win and avoid a runoff.
The United States, which warned against an Ortega win, has refused to comment on the results.
But former President Carter, who served as an election observer, said Tuesday that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice “assured me that no matter who was elected, the U.S. will respond positively and favorably.”
The middle and upper classes warn that Ortega will scare away investment, jeopardize U.S. relations and even plunge the country back into civil war.
