Nicaraguan municipals: Ortega wins

 © AP

2008-11-10 02:23:00 - MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) - Voters in Nicaragua's capital chose between a former world boxing champion and a Harvard-educated ex-finance minister Sunday in a mayoral election considered a referendum on leftist President Daniel Ortega. The race for mayor of Managua was the most closely watched of 146 municipal elections across the country. Voting was mostly peaceful, ending a campaign season that had been marred by sporadic  violence.  Ortega's administration has come under fire for barring two opposition parties from fielding mayoral candidates and for police raids against non-governmental organizations critical of his government.  The nationwide balloting is Ortega's first major electoral test since he won the presidency in 2006, returning to power nearly two decades after leading a Marxist government that fought U.S.-backed Contra rebels. Ortega has since been a regular critic of U.S. foreign policy and built strong ties with Venezuela, Russia and Iran.  Eduardo Montealegre, a former finance minister who lost the 2006 presidential race to Ortega, was running for Managua mayor on behalf of the opposition Liberal Constitutional Party. Three-time boxing world champion Alexis Arguello, 52, was representing Ortega's Sandinista party.  Montealegre, 53, used his own pen to mark his ballot amid rumors that Nicaragua's electoral authority was giving opposition members pens with disappearing ink provided by the government of Ortega ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The electoral council called the allegations ridiculous.  Montealegre had the support of 20-year-old Scarlet Sevilla, who said she voted even though she feared the Sandinistas would steal the election.  But Alejandra Perez, who cast her ballot in an impoverished neighborhood of the capital, said she considered Arguello the candidate of the poor and Montealegre representative of the rich.  Arguello, who is one of Nicaragua's biggest sports heroes, said he was confident of victory and that the elections would clean. Opposition leaders have criticized Ortega's government for failing to invite election observers from the Organization of American States and refusing to accredit the local group Ethics and Transparency, which has monitored past elections. The U.S. Embassy and the EU have also expressed concern the election would not be properly monitored.  Final results of the vote were not expected until Monday, and election officials said they did not know if any preliminary results would be announced Sunday night.