Sandinista Renovation Movement
Sandinista Renovation Movement | |
|---|---|
| President | Ana Margarita Vijil |
| Founded | 18 May 1995 |
| Headquarters | Managua, Nicaragua |
| Ideology |
Social democracy, Sandinismo, Left-wing nationalism |
| Political position | Centre-left |
| Party flag | |
 | |
| Website | |
| www.partidomrs.com | |
The Sandinista Renovation Movement (Movimiento Renovador Sandinista or MRS, in Spanish) is a Nicaraguan political party founded by dissidents of the Sandinista National Liberation Front on May 18, 1995, on Augusto César Sandino's 100th anniversary. Sandino's legacy was claimed by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), which overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in 1979 and the MRS took Sandino's hat as a symbol in their new flag.
One of the founding leaders of MRS was Sergio Ramírez, Nicaragua's vice-president from 1985 to 1990 under the Sandinistas government. Ramírez ran as the MRS presidential candidate in the 1996 elections. The MRS got 1.33% of the votes and got 1 seat (out of 91) in the Nicaraguan Parliament.
Other party leaders included former Sandinistas Herty Lewites and Dora María Téllez.[1][2]
In June 2008, the party was disqualified from running candidates in elections, along with the Conservative Party,[3] but it still participates in coalitions with other parties.
Alliance with the FSLN
In the 2001 presidential elections, as well as in the 2000 and 2004 municipal elections, the MRS joined forces with the FSLN. Though it lost the presidential elections in 2001, the alliance won the majority of the municipalities in the municipal elections, including Managua, the capital, and almost every major city in the country.
For the 2006 elections, the MRS presented Herty Lewites, the mayor of Managua (2000-2004), as their presidential candidate in the FSLN's internal elections. Soon after, Lewites and his followers were expelled from the FSLN.
On June 11, 2008, the MRS was stripped of its legal status by the Supreme Electoral Council of Nicaragua on the grounds that it had failed to comply with various requirements of the electoral law.
Alianza Herty 2006
The MRS decided to abandon the five-year-old alliance with the FSLN and run alone in the forthcoming elections with Herty Lewites as their Presidential candidate in 2006. Lewites chose Edmundo Jarquín as his running mate for the vice presidency.
On July 2, 2006, Lewites died of a massive heart attack at the Hospital Metropolitano "Vivian Pellas" in Managua, aged 66, four months before the 2006 national elections. Lewites was polling in third place, closely behind Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega and Eduardo Montealegre.
Jarquín took Lewites' place and chose the folk musician Carlos Mejía Godoy as his vice-presidential running mate. MRS continued to poll in third place (Election Poll Results, September 13, 2006).
The Sandinista Renovation Movement alliance, also known as the Herty 2006 Alliance in allusion to Herty Lewites, ran in this election together with the Nicaraguan Social Christian Party (PSC), Nicaraguan Socialist Party (PSN), Nicaraguan Green Party (ecologists), Party for Citizen Action (PAC) and other minor leftwing social and political movements.
At the November 2006 elections, Jarquín came in fourth place, receiving 6% of the vote, far behind third place candidate José Rizo of the Constitutional Liberal Party. The party won 5 of the 92 seats in congressional elections.
2008 municipal election
The Movement participated in the 2008 election within a broad anti-Ortega coalition Alianza PLC led by the Constitutional Liberal Party. The elections were won by the FSLN alliance, amid accusations of electoral fraud.[4]
In addition, the MRS leads the Alianza MRS of the forces that supported their candidate in the 2006 presidential election. Besides the Sandinista Renovation Movement, the alliance includes the Nicaraguan Socialist Party, the Movimiento por el Rescate del Sandinismo and a few minor organizations.[5]
References
- ↑ "Interview with Herty Lewites". Revista Envio. May 2006.
- ↑ "Dora María Téllez". Revista Envio. January 2013.
- ↑ Roger Burbach (March 2009). "Et Tu Daniel? The Sandinista Revolution Betrayed". Global Alternatives.
- ↑ "How to steal an election". The Economist. November 13, 2008.
- ↑ http://www.partidomrs.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=22&Itemid=49
