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PROFOUND CHANGE POSSIBLE IN NICARAGUA'S 2006 ELECTIONS.

Article Excerpt
Herty Lewites, former mayor of Managua and erstwhile pillar of the Frente Sandinista para la Liberacion Nacional (FSLN), has received a leg up from the Partido Alternativa Cristiana (AC) in his run for president of Nicaragua in 2006 (see NotiCen, 2005-03-10). The Catholic of Jewish extraction is now the candidate of the evangelicals. Lewites brought down the ire of the FSLN directorate in challenging Daniel Ortega as the party's candidate and calling for the question to be settled in a primary election. Ortega chose instead to have himself chosen by a convention rather than compete in a contest that, said all the polls, Lewites would have won.

The AC chose Lewites on the basis of "human values." Though small, the party is linked to organizations throughout the country that together form a "human alliance" that militates for the poor and for a government that seeks to improve their lot. Lewites' political philosophy plays directly to that interest. Upon being nominated, he said, "It is difficult to see the population surviving on what it can obtain from the garbage, eating waste or spoiled food to be able to mitigate hunger." He told his AC supporters, "What is gained from elections if the people live more in misery every day? For me, democracy is to have food, education, health, work, and that is the democracy that we are going to make in Nicaragua."

Lewites was also named the candidate of the Movimiento Renovador Sandinista (MRS), a movement spun off from the FSLN and founded by former vice president Sergio Ramirez. Lewites, along with some analysts, believes that his nomination represents a fundamental change in Nicaraguan politics that will break the electoral...

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