ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, October 22, 1996 TAG: 9610220078
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: MANAGUA, NICARAGUA
SOURCE: Associated Press
Piling up so many votes that he might avoid a runoff, conservative Arnoldo Aleman claimed a triumph Monday over Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua's presidential election.
But in what may be a preview of antagonism between the Sandinistas and an Aleman administration, Ortega rejected the official results - at least temporarily - claiming anomalies and discrepancies between official figures and his own party's count.
``There was fraud in several instances. There were alterations in the telegrams from the [states] that lead us to believe the telegrams did not give the exact number of votes the [Sandinistas] got,'' he said.
Few had expected any candidate to get the 45 percent of the vote needed to win Sunday's election outright and avoid a runoff. But with 42 percent of the vote counted Monday, Aleman had 48 percent to Ortega's 39 percent. Twenty-one other candidates shared the rest.
A former mayor of Managua, the 50-year-old Aleman had campaigned on fears that Ortega would return Nicaragua to the economic hardships and political conflicts of the 1980s, after the leftist Sandinistas took power in a revolution.
``I ask God for the wisdom to understand the enormous responsibility I have acquired,'' a jubilant Aleman said when the first results were announced before dawn. ``There are no conquerors or conquered. Only the people have won.''
Dressed in a bright red shirt, the color of his party's flag, the lawyer and businessman called on all parties to unite behind him.
Sunday's vote marked the first time in Nicaragua that a civilian government chosen in an open election was to transfer power to another. President Violeta Chamorro, who by law could not run again Sunday, leaves office Jan. 10.
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