Latinnews Daily - 15 December 2003

The leader of the opposition Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), Daniel Ortega, has spoken for the first time since the conviction of former President Arnoldo Alemán on corruption charges. Ortega lost considerable face among party grassroots after his aborted alliance with Alemán's liberal party in an attempt to get the former president off the hook. The two men agreed to postpone next year's municipal elections until 2006 and change Nicaragua's presidential system to a parliamentary one until Washington applied considerable pressure to Nicaragua's judiciary.