Word: chamorro
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Though Sandinista leaders exude confidence, opinion polls project wildly conflicting results. One survey puts Ortega 20 points ahead of Chamorro; another gives Chamorro almost exactly the same lead. The discrepancy confirms a suspicion that Nicaraguans, unused to honest elections and chary of speaking their minds to strangers, say whatever they think a pollster wants to hear. Gallup would...
After weeks of languishing in low gear, Chamorro's campaign revved up over the past fortnight. She is relying on voters' pent-up fury with ten years of Sandinista mismanagement. Inflation last year hovered around 1,700%, unemployment around 25%. Real wages have dropped more than 90% since 1981. "All she has to do is point to the Sandinista record," says Alfredo Cesar, Chamorro's chief adviser. "She doesn't have to convince anyone she's better than Daniel Ortega...
That is just as well. Dona Violeta is a charming woman whose smile ignites crowds. But she owes her candidacy to the memory of her late husband Pedro Joaquin Chamorro Cardenal, the revered publisher of the Managua daily La Prensa who was assassinated in January 1978. Her casual pace suggests disorganization rather than confidence. Until last month, Chamorro restricted her forays outside Managua to weekends, supposedly for lack of funds. Her unfamiliarity with the details of issues, like Nicaragua's hyperinflation, has spawned unflattering comparisons with Ronald Reagan. Enthroned in a wheelchair because of knee surgery, Chamorro becomes testy when...
...Even if Chamorro wins, many Nicaraguans doubt that the Sandinistas would willingly relinquish power to her, especially control of the 70,000-member armed forces, which is called the Sandinista People's Army and is the main guarantor of the F.S.L.N.'s power. Chamorro favors drastically reducing the army's size. If Ortega should win in a fair election, the U.S. would be under pressure to normalize relations with Managua or at the very least to lift the economic boycott imposed in 1985. For now, the Bush Administration is taking a tough stance, promising to improve relations with the Sandinistas...
...Chamorro triumph would lead not only to the ending of the boycott but also, most likely, to an infusion of U.S. aid designed to help resuscitate the country's economy. But after spending more than $300 million in aid to the contras to dislodge the Sandinistas, Washington might find itself allocating large sums to a country run by a President who so far has demonstrated neither the vision nor the administrative skills to do her job well. Ortega's election, on the other hand, would signal that the nation's 1.75 million voters prefer the devil they know. In either...