A tense atmosphere lingered over Nicaragua's North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN) yesterday following a day of rioting over the fate of the municipal elections, which led to a dozen injuries, including two people critically wounded from gunshots Friday morning.

Anti-Sandinista leader Osorno “Comandante Blas” Coleman told The Nica Times that his group, YATAMA No Sandinista, was planning to march to the local police station yesterday evening to “liberate” 17 fellow indigenous protesters who were arrested over the weekend for rioting. Coleman said the police have not gone after Sandinista sympathizers who reportedly shot the two protestors, but rather the “victims” of the aggression.

“This is political persecution,” he charged, adding that the situation threatens to get violent again.

President Daniel Ortega had argued that the conditions for elections did not exist in the RAAN municipalities of Bilwi, Prinzapolka and Waspam due to the damage caused by last year's Hurricane Felix. The opposition, however, alleges that Ortega wanted to cancel the elections because he is afraid he'll lose those mayoral seats to the Liberals.

When three Liberal lawmakers trekked out to Bilwi Friday morning to investigate the situation, they were attacked by Sandinista supporters. The fighting escalated when anti-Sandinista indigenous groups came to the lawmakers' defense, and then spread downtown, where residents sacked the mayor's office and burned several government vehicles.

The Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) then ruled Friday evening to suspend the elections in the three indigenous municipalities until April, 2009 – a decision that has been decried as illegal by opposition indigenous leaders, Liberal lawmakers and several prominent legal analysts.

Read this Friday's Nica Times, an eight-page publication of The Tico Times, for more on this story.