817.00/5149: Telegram
The Chargé in Nicaragua (Munro) to the Secretary of State
[Received 2:15 p.m.]
340. Department’s 196, November 17, 6 p.m. I suggest that the proposed transitory provisions be modified before I communicate them to the President to make it perfectly clear, if such be the Department’s intention, that the existing members of the National and Departmental Electoral Boards will be definitely removed from office by the new act and that these boards will be reorganized by the election of new members after the proclamation of the results of the election of 1928. Otherwise the Liberals will maintain that the existing electoral boards which they control will resume office when the old act comes back into effect. As the effect of the new law upon the existing boards will immediately be questioned by both parties when the draft provisions are communicated to them, I believe that this question should be settled at once and that it would be more equitable to reconstitute all of the electoral machinery in 1929 than to permit the existing boards to resume office.