US suspends Nicaraguan aid after disputed election
[Link: news.yahoo.com...]
MANAGUA, Nicaragua – The U.S. says it will freeze about $64 million in anti-poverty aid to Nicaragua amid accusations that local elections were fraudulent.
Nicaragua dismissed the move on Wednesday, saying it could easily find aid elsewhere.
The Millennium Challenge Corp, a U.S. development program working in some of the world’s poorest countries, will hold back $64 million that had yet to be contracted out as part of a $175 million, five-year anti-poverty program.
The rest of the money has been committed to projects begun in 2005 to improve incomes and conditions for rural families.
“We had hoped, for the sake of the Nicaraguan people, that the government would continue the country’s trend toward peaceful, democratic and credible elections,” Millennium Challenge executive director John Danilovich said Tuesday. “I am afraid recent evidence shows that this is not the case.”
The dispute involves the Nov. 9 municipal elections, in which President Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista party won a majority of the country’s mayorships — 105 compared with 37 for opposition Constitutionalist Liberal Party.
The opposition has proposed legislation to cancel the election results, arguing the vote was fraudulent and
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Frank says: