Editor's Note: The people of Nicaragua have cast their votes in yesterday's all important nationwide municipal elections. toni solo, editor of Tortilla con Sal sent the following message and an UPDATE* about the process yesterday. We can expect false claims of voter fraud based upon a number of prejudgements made in the corporate media and other right wing websites made even before the elections took place. For example, In How to Steal an Election, The Economist began setting the stage for claims of election fraud in Nicaragua back in 2008:

"Daniel Ortega, has returned to power, having won a presidential election in 2006 against a divided opposition. Now, armed with an alliance with Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, he seems determined to snuff out Nicaragua's young democracy."

and on September 23, Nicaragua Dispatch published,Like Lambs to the Slaughter:

"The ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), which since 2007 has eliminated virtually all democratic checks and balances by consolidating single-party control over all four branches of government and state institutions, will be going for a royal flush in November.

"The party controlled by President Daniel Ortega and his omnipresent wife has stated that it expects to win “by an avalanche” in essentially every municipality. That prophecy, which will most likely come true, will be a deathblow to municipal autonomy (or what remains of it) and fulfill the president’s publically professed dream of converting Nicaragua into a one-party system."

It's the same worn out strategy that's been used against Iran, Russia and many other countries in which the US has a strategic and illicit interest. We will continue to update this report when the official results have been announced.El Consejo Supremo Electoral (CSE). Meanwhile, see toni's first update below from Tortilla con Sal. - LMB

*UPDATE I - At midnight the preliminary official results from the Supreme Electoral Council have not been announced. The most likely reason for this is probable opposition challenges to results in some municipalities.

Overall, the FSLN has definitely made sweeping gains, taking control of municipalities in the Atlantic Coast and elsewhere that have always been controlled by one or other of opposition parties.

But we have to wait for the official results before knowing the full scale of the Sandinista gains in these 2012 municipal elections. - toni solo

Managua, November 4, 2012, 5 p.m. Nicaragua's municipal elections have taken place in an atmosphere of great calm and apparent efficiency. Almost all the Juntas Receptoras de Votos opened on time at around 7.00am.

Some people had been queuing since around 5.30am in order to vote. But most people seems to have voted between 10.00am and noon and from 2.00pm onwards.

The turn out is about the same as for the last municipal elections in 2008 and so will probably end up being around 55% or thereabouts nationally.

The only serious potential problem reported by the CSE was caused by the opposition Liberal party election officials of the PLI and the PLC either not turning up at all to their Juntas Receptoras de Votos or else abandoning the mesas electorales after they'd been sworn in.

The apparent objective was to attempt declare those JRVs null. But the electoral law clearly establishes the procedure to follow in such cases and this particular ill-conceived attempted sabotage of the vote was a non-starter. It's not clear how many mesas electorales were affected by that manouevre

Voting will continue until 6.00pm unless there are people still queuing to vote. In that case, the respective JRVs will stay open until everyone waiting to do so will have voted

Preliminary results can be expected at around 10.00pm.

toni solo, Tortilla con Sal