Posted by
Rodrigo Pineda-Icaza on Monday, November 06, 2006 6:17:11 PM
The counting of votes in Managua was halted, this afternoon due to multiple irregularities found during the counting process by representatives of at least three political parties. An electrical blackout in the area where the computers are in the counting center as well as the presence of installed programs that were not part of the standard computer installation packages, prompted the representatives of several political parties to request the suspension, in the department of Managua. It is understood that the counting will restart tomorrow morning.
At the same time Daniel Ortega stopped calling victory for his political association and is looking more reconciliatory and asking all Nicaraguans for patience and letting the election process to work.
The official report of the results came out around 7:00 PM, Nicaraguan time, with a 61.80% of total votes, with the following results:
FSLN 38.59%
ALN 30.94%
PLC 22.93%
MRS 7.25%
AC 0.29%
I personally can see a trend that could put Ortega under the 35% required to win the presidency, he is only 3.59% from missing the cutoff mark of 35%. They are also only 2.76% to miss the 5% margin that he needs to maintain from the second runner-up. With 39% of the votes still not counted I think the race is becoming closer to a second round.