BY FRANCES ROBLES

 MANAGUA -- Much of the campaign talk this election season in Nicaragua is about forgiveness and letting go of the past. For Agustín Jarquín, it may be more than mere rhetoric.

 A former dissident, he was jailed several times by the Sandinista Front. The last stretch lasted six months in 1988, when the civil engineer sat side by side with robbers and thugs. The charge against him: attending a rock-throwing protest against the leftist government.

 So what, then, is the 49-year-old former comptroller general doing near the top of the Sandinista ticket for the Nov. 4 presidential election?

 ``Anger only hurts you,'' said Jarquín, who is running for vice president on former President Daniel Ortega's ticket. ``In the end, it creates even more physical and spiritual problems.''

 Even in a country with a history of bizarre politics, they are an odd partnership.

 Jarquín worked in the Public Works Ministry in the 1970s when a dictator named Anastasio Somoza ruled the country and guerrillas fought to topple him. Those
 Sandinista revolutionaries were successful, taking hold in 1979 and putting in place a Marxist government many felt was as repressive as the one led by the dictator they drove out.

 Jarquín became an activist. As president of the Social Christian Party, he was a voice for those struggling against the government, not with guns in the mountains but with words in the open.

 ``We're living historic moments, our most favorable opportunity to reconquer the democracy usurped from us!'' he roared in 1987, in the type of speech that landed him in jail on a number of occasions.

 Mild mannered and soft-spoken when he's not on the stump, Jarquín said prison taught him valuable lessons, such as what's important and who your friends are.

 The Sandinistas lost power in 1990, the same year Jarquín lost a bid to be mayor of the capital. In the 11 years that followed, he held a variety of government posts,
 including a stint as the country's top corruption czar.

 He questioned contracts and asked how his political rival, President Arnoldo Alemán, managed to boost his wealth 3,800 percent. (It was Alemán who won that 1990 Managua mayor's race.)

 Alemán's ruling government later had Jarquín arrested, accusing him of paying journalists for positive news coverage. Jarquín acknowledged some of the payments, a
 common practice by some Nicaraguan officials. The charges were dropped after the European Union complained that the jailing was an insult to ``the respect for the
 independence of democratic institutions.''

 Not a year later, Jarquín was back in the spotlight, but this time side by side with Ortega, the man he spent more than 10 years fighting. Many viewed it as a ploy by
 Ortega to convince voters that his hardline days of censorship and property confiscations were over.

 ``There is a great word for it: o-p-p-o-r-t-u-n-i-s-t-i-c, opportunistic,'' said Miguel Diaz, a Central America expert for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. ``It's the ultimate political cover for the Sandinistas. I don't see anything beyond simple opportunism that's driving Jarquín to do this.''

 Diaz met with Jarquín for an hour last month during a trip to Nicaragua sponsored by a Republican think tank.

 ``Joining the Sandinistas will blemish him,'' Diaz said. ``You cannot be indifferent in Nicaragua.''

 In an interview with The Herald, Jarquín insisted that he has allied himself with his former adversary because the Sandinista Front has matured from scrappy guerrilla
 fighters to a true political machine.

 Jarquín credits the Sandinistas for creating the country's current democratic political system and for being the first to relinquish power after a loss at the polls. He is
 convinced Ortega is committed to combating poverty and trimming big government salaries.

 If polls are right, Jarquín and Ortega may soon find themselves in the presidential palace. Ortega is neck and neck with Liberal Party candidate Enrique Bolaños, who was vice president under Alemán.

 As for whether his former foe is now a friend, Jarquín says they are working on it.

 ``We are developing a relationship based on trust,'' he said. ``It's a process of getting closer, trusting, and making compromises. We're not enemies, and we're developing a friendship.''

 He says forgiveness is his nature: While director of the Institute for Industrial Development in 1994, his former jail warden was one of his co-workers.

 ``He'd say, `Hey, Agustín, how are you?' Look, I didn't go drink beers with the guy, but what was I going to do?'' he said. ``We had to move forward. If you try to resolve problems of the past, all you lose is the future.''

                                    © 2001