Arguello and the Sandanista

"On March 6, 2008, Arguello was nominated by the Sandanista Party of Nicaragua to run for Mayor of capital city Managua in upcoming open elections. Arguello will run for the mayoral office in the upcoming November 2008 elections against Eduardo Montealegre, the conservative candidate of the Liberal Alliance Party who lost the election for President of Nicaragua in 2006 to Daniel Ortega." Does anyone have further information about this? While I am no expert on the political history of Nicaragua, it certainly strikes me as strange. If I'm not mistaken, the Sandanista were responsible for the forced exile of Arguello and his family, as well as the seizure of all his assets and property in the country circa 1980. It seems a bit odd, even all these years later (and perhaps after significant changes in the party structure) that Arguello would be willing to associate (indeed, ally) himself with the group that he was so outspoken against during his career as a boxer.

Comments (2)

macman

From what I know of Arguello's history, he originally supported the the Sandanista's, but then fell out with them over their heavyhanded tactics. From what I gather, the Sandinista's were originally seen by most of the Nicaraguan's as more as the people's party, but they made the mistake of trying to force Arguello into the role of spokesman againt US support for Samoza & the Contra's. Arguello, who initially supported their program of support for the poor, Land reform, equality, etc., was increasingly put off by their heavyhanded attempts to force him into the role of official mouthpiece, which ended up with his property being seized & his family turned out into the street. He ended up in Florida, loudly proclaimed by the Cuban Anti-Castro crowd & various right-wing exile groups, but tended to try & stay out of politics from what I could tell & get on with his life. Got into politics gradually after his career ended - community spokesman for local programs, etc., went back to Nicaragua when things had died down, built a big boxing gym, became more involved in local programs, & finally declared for mayor. In spite of his previous trouble's with the Sandinistas, they are still the ones that have the basic platforms that Arguello seems to support, ie. support for the poor, less corruption, literacy & medical programs, etc. The opposition party, which was the power after the Sandinista's lost power is the PLC, which seems to be mainly corrupt business figures. You can find out more about the Sandinista's at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandinista

18y ago

Miburo

One bump to try to save an original topic of discussion. Perhaps I should have entitled it "Cotto P4P#1!" in all caps as a red herring...

18y ago