Anti-Pact Demonstration Draws Thousands

Thousands took to the streets on Thursday morning, marching down the Avenida Bolivar in Managua in repudiation of the Sandinista-Liberal Pact of 1999-2000, which they saw as a root cause of the present crisis. Marchers carried huge signs declaring "Enough of the Pact," while protesters dressed as pigs adorned themselves with pictures of Ortega and Alemán signing the famous pact. Protest organizers believe that the march was successful in sending a strong message to the pact leaders: either suspend the constitutional amendments passed in January of this year, along with the election of the directors of the Superintendency of Public Services (SISEP), or the population will intensify its efforts of rejection.

Ana Quirós, Civil Coordinator for the Network for Nicaragua, an umbrella group of liberal and progressive civil society groups, which organized the march, commented that the negative reaction to the march of the National Union of University Students (UNEN) and other groups was nothing more than a demonstration of fear, easily countered by what she called the march's "sensation of peace, happiness and, above all, civic order." Press reports noted the presence of government employees as well as employees of companies belonging to the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (COSEP). Visible were blue and white flags of Nicaragua as well as some green Conservative banners along with many red and black flags carried by Sandinista sympathizers of former FSLN mayor of Managua Herty Lewites, recently expelled from the FSLN after declaring he would challenge Daniel Ortega for the party's presidential candidacy of 2006.