Eduardo Montealegre

Eduardo Montealegre (born 1955) is a Nicaraguan politician. He is running for president in the 2006 general election as the candidate of the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance (ALN-PC) a spin-off of the Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) in alliance with other liberal parties and the Conservative Party. Montealegre received an Sc. B in Economics from Brown University in 1976 and an MBA with a focus in finance and strategic planning from Harvard University in 1978. He later became a businessman in Nicaragua. [1]

Montealegre served as foreign minister from 1998 to 2000 in the government of Arnoldo Alemán and as finance minister from 2002 to 2005 in the government of the current President Enrique Bolaños. He split from the PLC in protest of the control of the party by former President Alemán, currently serving a 20-year sentence for misappropriation of funds. Montealegre also objected to a pact between Alemán and Daniel Ortega, who is running for the fourth time for the FSLN, to control the national assembly and the judicial system. [2] Because of his anti-corruption (anti-Alemán) and anti-Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) stands, he is strongly supported by the United States.

A commission of Nicaragua's national assembly has threatened to criminally charge Montealegre, as well as a former head of the central bank and the former superintendent of banks. They allege that they abused their positions to enrich themselves by illegally issuing $300 million dollars in bonds in favor of banks that acquired several failed banks. This commission consists of PLC and FSLN members. According to the most recent poll on August 16th 2006 [3], Montealegre is in third place with Daniel Ortega for the FSLN in first, while José Rizo Castellón for the Constitutionalist Liberal Party is in second.