BY FRANCES ROBLES

 MANAGUA -- Talk of poverty, jobs and corruption has been shoved aside in Nicaragua's presidential election and replaced with terrorism -- a hot topic designed to derail the comeback hopes of former leftist President Daniel Ortega.

 Perhaps uniquely among Latin American countries, the Sept. 11 attack on the twin towers has become a crucial campaign issue here. It has forced Ortega, the candidate of the Sandinista Front, to confront a legacy of his party's 11-year rule: making Nicaragua a safe haven for terrorists and radicals.

 ``After President Bush said you are either on his side or the other side, the truth is that candidate Ortega is on the other side,'' said Alejandro Fiallos, spokesman for
 Ortega's opponent, Liberal Party candidate Enrique Bolaños. ``He's for Moammar Gadhafi, Fidel Castro, bin Laden and all those other people.''

 Ortega has repeatedly denied links to terrorists. On Sept. 11, he quickly fired off a letter to President Bush saying he was ``shaken by the tragic events.''

 Although he does not deny friendships with world leaders considered anathema to U.S. interests, Ortega further argues that the U.S. position against Libya and Cuba is hypocritical, because Washington has a long history of supporting dictatorships.

 And despite all the mudslinging, Ortega seems to be faring well in a country more concerned with three square meals a day than New York's fallen towers. Polls show Ortega in a virtual dead heat with his opponent, and some believe the desperate campaign tactics may actually backfire.

 An example of the desperate moves: Phony banners purporting to be signed by Ortega popped up, declaring, ``I am Taliban. So what?''

 U.S. ENEMIES

 Meanwhile, opponents are paying for newspaper ads showing Ortega with other U.S. enemies, such as Castro, Gadhafi and Iraq's Saddam Hussein. Local Internet
 accounts were spammed with e-mails guiding users to websites showing Ortega shaking hands with Hussein, and a TV spot showing Osama bin Laden declaring that if he could vote in Nicaragua, he'd cast his ballot for Ortega.

 Attacks are so frequent and bitter that Ortega's wife, Rosario Murillo, wrote a letter to first lady Laura Bush Tuesday telling her ``as a woman and mother'' that the
 American people were being manipulated in an ugly campaign battle. The Sandinista party filed a formal complaint with the Supreme Electoral Council last month.

 But Nicaragua -- Ortega in particular -- cannot shake events of the not-so-distant past. In 1993, one of the suspects in the World Trade Center bombing was caught with five passports from Nicaragua, a nation he had never visited. That same year, an explosion that rocked a Managua auto body shop revealed a cache of arms, passports and clues to an international kidnapping ring.

 Former Sandinista Tomas Borge was among the first to show up at the scene -- in his pajamas. Although Marxists in neighboring El Salvador took responsibility for the weapons hoard, the ring was widely believed to have existed with Sandinista consent.

 ``We have never practiced terrorism and never will,'' Borge told The Herald Thursday. ``We are enemies unto death.''

 BASE FOR RADICALS

 But Bolaños' camp is quick to point out that hundreds of revolutionaries, terrorists and radicals from around the world who made Nicaragua their home in the 1980s,
 including dozens of Palestinians, Jordanians, Iranians, Lebanese and Syrians, were granted Nicaraguan citizenship in a flurry that occurred just as Ortega left office in
 1990.

 The move was considered a gift to nearly 1,000 sympathizers that trained here during Sandinista rule.

 Ortega, 55, remains head of the Sandinista Front, which ruled here from 1979 to 1990. He advanced to the presidency through an armed revolution, only to see his party's reign marred by war and skyrocketing inflation.

 Although he was ousted by voters in 1990 and lost a bid for the presidency again in 1996, polls show him in a virtual tie with his opponent, the former vice president. And although Bolaños' camp is hitting hard with the terrorist theme -- echoed by diplomatic comments from Washington -- the question in this poverty-stricken country is: Does anyone care?

 Sandinista-friendly research suggests linking Ortega to the trade towers attack is not making inroads with voters.

 ``My impression is that this is fundamentally just a campaign tactic,'' said Sergio Santamaria, of the Socioeconomic Research Center in Managua. ``The problems people here find more worrisome are employment, poverty and, to a lesser extent, corruption. Terrorism is not a major issue.''

 His center conducted a poll shortly after the Sept. 11 attack that revealed 80 percent of Nicaragua's voters would not be influenced by references to terrorism. An Institute of Nicaraguan Studies poll showed just 9 percent of the country's voters thought Arab terrorists had ties to the Sandinistas, although the number jumped to 17 percent in the capital.

 ``The attacks have reached such an absurd and low level, that it's having the opposite effect: It's now propaganda for us,'' said Edwin Castro, legal representative for the Sandinista party.

 His backers launched a counter-attack, pointing out that bin Laden was once allied with the CIA -- just like the contras, U.S.-financed guerrilla fighters that waged war on the Sandinistas.

 ``The fact of the matter is, Ortega used Nicaragua as a sanctuary for all kinds of terrorism,'' said Fiallos, Bolaños' spokesman. ``Those suspects in the hijackings that
 they still can't find? If he won, Ortega would help them come here and use this as a base. He's always liked to destabilize America.''

 The election takes place in 15 days.

                                    © 2001