Nicaraguan Presidential Election

Even if you don't give a shit about Central America, this is huge.

An extremely brief and recent history... for 100 years Nicaragua has been an imperial asset of the US, controlled through IMIs, TNCs, and puppet governments (most notably the Somoza Dictatorship, ruling from 1930-1977).

From 1977-1979, the Sandinista Guerrilla army overthrew the US-instated oppressive, criminal dictatorship, and set up a governing revolutionary army.

If you don't know what neo-colonialism is... it's when a state controls other states indirectly, essentially through capitalism.

Corporate and Institutional presence in Nicaragua have, for a century, completely eroded its social and economic sectors. For the past forty+ years, the Sandinistas have fought against this capitalist presence in Nicaragua.

The Sandinistas were not and are not communist; they are Marxist. They believe in a gradual equilibrium of wealth and power, coinciding with democracy and pluralism. Naturally, the US hates them.

Ronald Reagan led a 7 year Counter-revolutionary war against Sandinista-led Nicaragua in the 1980s, using the lives of Hondurans and Somocistas in an attempt to topple the government.

The Sandinistas overcame the Contra war, but due to extremely heavy economic pressure and threat of full-scale invasion (Panama in 1989 was partially motivated by the need for an example), the Sandinistas lost the election to the Conservative Party.

They passed the torch to the Liberal Party, who formed a corrupt coalition with the Sandinistas, who ceded to the conditions to gain more political power. Since this change in power, the US supported Conservative and Liberal parties have reopened the door to capitalism, corporate influences, and neocolonialism.

The leader of the Sandinistas, since 1977, has been Daniel Ortega. He was the head of the Revolutionary Party from 1979-1984, President from 1984-1990, and leader of the FSLN ever since, running for President in the 1996 and 2001 elections.

To reiterate... from 1977-1990, Nicaragua had broken free of US colonialism. From 1990-2006, the US reclaimed the territory via neo-colonial instruments.

Today, Nicaraguans are voting for a new President. Vastly ahead in the polls, is Daniel Ortega.

You shouldn't need me to draw you a map, to realize the regional chaos and global paradigm shift that today's election could create.

Three articles on the subject
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6112942.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6117704.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6109328.stm

So far, the preliminary results indicate that Ortega leads with 41% of the vote.

I've been very brief in this exposition; if anyone wants to discuss this issue more deeply, I'll be happy to engage.

Edit: Decius, since this entire post was written by me, it is not an excerpt, so please do not modify it as such.