Nica: Huge Turnout, Long Lines Delay Voting & Results Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Monday November 5 3:33 AM ET (via Yahoo) Late Votes Delay Nicaragua Results By ELOY O. AGUILAR, Associated Press Writer MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) - Voters flooded polling places for a crucial presidential election in Nicaragua, delaying until Monday first word of whether the Sandinista party and Daniel Ortega could regain power 11 years after losing it. The turnout was so great that election officials said some voters were still queued up to cast ballots at 11:30 p.m. Sunday - 51/2 hours after the lines to vote were closed nationwide. `I was struck by the fact that in nearly every single village we could see long lines of people who were waiting to vote,'' said U.S. Rep. David Dreier, a California Republican who was part of a congressional observation group that toured the country by helicopter. The law forbade release of quick counts before official information, but members of the governing Constitutionalist Liberal Party were increasingly in a celebratory mood early Monday. `We are happy with the results,'' party official Wilfredo Navarro told state-run Radio Nicaragua. `This triumph is a triumph of democracy.'' Ortega, chief of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, was making a second attempt to regain the presidency he lost in 1990 elections that ended 11 years of Sandinista rule marked by a U.S.-backed rebellion in which tens of thousands died. Facing him was the Liberals' Enrique Bolanos, 73, a former vice president who saw most of his businesses confiscated during the Sandinista era. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter was among thousands of local and foreign poll watchers scattered across the nation of 5 million people to monitor what was expected to be a tight and tense election. Once a socialist revolutionary who wore olive-green uniforms as president, Ortega sought to soften his image, campaigning in pink shirts and with the slogan `the path of love.'' His earlier governments followed socialist policies, confiscating property, jailing opponents and drafting tens of thousands of youths to fight U.S.-backed rebels while trying to bring jobs and food for all. Ortega has vowed to follow market-based policies and to seek good relations with the United States. He said his government would include several people who had been jailed by the Sandinista government of the 1980s. But U.S. officials openly tilted against him, expressing concern about his party's past ties to terrorists and its past socialist policies. Bolanos promised to continue the free-market policies of outgoing President Arnoldo Aleman, but with a greater emphasis on fighting corruption. Allegations of shady dealings stained the reputation of the outgoing government. Under a Liberal-Sandinista deal that reformed the constitution, third parties were severely restricted and key posts divided up on a partisan basis. The pact also means Aleman, as former president, becomes a member of the country's congress - with legal immunity from prosecution. The new president's first task will be to tackle economic troubles in a country with a per capita income of about $430 a year. Millions live on about a dollar a day. Aleman's government has increased foreign investment, but it remains saddled with a $4 billion foreign debt and is unlikely to meet financial targets agreed upon with the International Monetary Fund as a condition for more debt relief. Slumping world markets, a slowing global economy and the terror attacks against the United States have hurt Nicaragua's top income sources: coffee, tourism, assembly plants and remittances from Nicaraguans abroad. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-11.05.01-04:03:27-4148