Election system, close contest may stir unrest, experts warn

 BY TIM JOHNSON

 WASHINGTON -- As former Sandinista President Daniel Ortega mounts a strong campaign to lead Nicaragua again, a ``deeply flawed'' voting system may portend a messy Nov. 4 election with no clear winner and the potential for violence, Republican experts warned Tuesday.

 Ortega, a leader of the 1979 Sandinista revolution, was voted out of office in 1990 and lost a 1996 bid for the presidency. Polls show that he is in a dead heat with rival Enrique Bolaños of the Liberal party.

 ``There's a widespread and growing fear . . . among Nicaraguans that a closely contested and disorganized election would lead to unrest,'' Caleb C. McCarry, a GOP staff director of a House panel on the Western Hemisphere, said at an International Republican Institute forum.

 Twelve percent of registered Nicaraguan voters still don't have voting identity documents, and ballot counting procedures are poor, the institute reported.

 McCarry said he believes the Sandinistas ``do not appear to be prepared to concede a close election,'' and may be cranking up ``divine mobs'' run by former state security boss Lenín Cerna to stir up violence should results not go their way.

 ``I'd hate to see rival celebrants in the streets the night of the election,'' echoed William Perry, a conservative analyst.

 EFFECTIVE CAMPAIGN

 Perry said he is surprised at how effective Ortega, a one-time Marxist guerrilla with a youthful style, has been on the campaign trail.

 ``Frankly, Daniel Ortega is running a pretty intelligent campaign, a campaign in pastels, not in black and red,'' he said, referring to the traditional colors of the Sandinista Front.

 Several analysts blamed widespread corruption under President Arnoldo Alemán and his failure to bring about economic recovery for reviving the fortunes of Ortega and hurting Bolaños, who served as Alemán's vice president and remains close to him.

 `ELECTED KING'

 Alemán's style of leadership has become ``more authoritarian, more manipulative, kind of reminiscent of an elected king,'' said Stephen Johnson of the conservative
 Heritage Foundation.

 Perry said Alemán's Liberal Party has done little for economic development.

 ``The country is remarkably un-different from what it was 15 years ago, and really just shockingly poor in comparison to other countries,'' Perry said.

 While advocating fair elections, several participants appeared uneasy over a possible Ortega victory. Washington's relations with Ortega's government were strained and violent, with the United States backing the anti-Sandinista contra rebels. The Sandinistas, in turn, had the support of Cuba and the Soviet Union.

 The war ended only when Ortega agreed to international supervision of the 1990 elections.

 During the 11-year Sandinista rule, Nicaragua became a haven for radicals and revolutionaries from the Middle East, Europe and Latin America.

 ``The prospect of seeing those kind of alliances gain strength in this hemisphere again is something that I believe is very, very disconcerting for all of us,'' said Rep. David Dreier, a California Republican.

 `RUMORS FLYING'

 McCarry said when he was in Nicaragua in late August, ``there were certainly a lot of rumors flying around that the Sandinistas were getting money from the Libyans and from [populist Venezuelan President Hugo] Chávez'' for the Ortega campaign.

 If Ortega were to win the elections, several Reagan administration hard-liners who helped design and carry out the contra war of the 1980s are back in power in
 Washington.

 They include John Negroponte, the former U.S. ambassador to Honduras who is now the U.S. envoy to the United Nations. Elliott Abrams, who was convicted in the late 1980s for withholding information from Congress over U.S. arming of the contras, now works in the National Security Council. Otto Reich, a Cuban American who sought to build public support for U.S. policies in Central America, is now the White House nominee as its senior diplomat to Latin America.

                                    © 2001