Nicaragua to accept OAS election observers

MANAGUA, Nicaragua – The Organization of American States will send observers to Nicaragua's Nov. 6 elections, after President Daniel Ortega's government reversed its opposition to outside monitors.

The government said it had invited the OAS to send a team to Nicaragua from Nov. 5 to 7, and that the OAS had accepted.

The Sandinista National Liberation Front is running Ortega as its candidate for the seventh consecutive time. Earlier this year Ortega said he would not allow international election monitoring because those organizations are "shameless."

Opposition politician Irving Davila of the Broad Front for Democracy said the observers "shouldn't be interpreted as a backing for Ortega."

In July, Nicaragua's top electoral authority decimated the country's political opposition by unseating practically all of its remaining lawmakers in congress.