Elections start in Nicaragua

Elections start in Nicaragua

Nicaraguans went to the polls Sunday to choose their country's president, vice president, 90 deputies of the National Assembly and 20 Central American parliamentarians.
Voting began at 7 a.m. local time (1300 GMT) and voting centers will close at 6 p.m. (0000 GMT). A total of 12,985 polling stations have been installed in 153 municipalities across Nicaragua's 16 provinces.

Five candidates are competing for the presidency. The latest opinion polls had incumbent President Daniel Ortega comfortably ahead with about 48 percent support.

Fabio Gadea of the Independent Liberal Party Alliance was second with 30 percent, while former president Arnoldo Aleman, a candidate for the Constitutional Liberal Party, was polling 10 percent in the survey.

Under the country's electoral law, in order to claim victory in the first round, a candidate must either win at least 40 percent of valid votes, or win at least 35 percent and have an advantage of 5 percent or more over the closest runner-up.

The elections are organized by the Supreme Electoral Council.

About 100 observers from the European Union, as well as 80 observers from the Organization of American States, are monitoring the elections.

A total of 20,000 national police and army security troops have been deployed to ensure that the voting proceeds without trouble.

In Nicaragua, all people over 16 years of age are eligible to vote and more than 3.4 million of Nicaragua's 5.8 million population have registered to vote in this election.

Editor: Deng Shasha

English.news.cn   2011-11-06 21:16:57 FeedbackPrintRSS
MANAGUA, Nov. 6 (Xinhua)