By CAROL ROSENBERG
                                      Herald Staff Writer

                                      Nicaragua's Foreign Minister raised regional alarm bells
                                      Friday by warning on a panel of senior Central American
                                      diplomats that a three-times disgraced Daniel Ortega might
                                      try to disrupt his country's nascent democracy if he fails to
                                      win the November elections.

                                      Francisco Aguirre figuratively donned his hat as member of
                                      the party of President Arnoldo Alemán to warn that the
                                      Sandinista leader might ``try to disrupt'' or impose a
                                      ``nightmare scenario'' -- if he is defeated in the upcoming
                                      elections by his party leader, Enrique Bolaños, who he
                                      described as a brilliant businessman of great integrity whose
                                      detractors say he has little charisma.

                                      ``I hope that if he (Ortega) loses he will accept that defeat
                                      and go off to the National Assembly,'' said Aguirre, vowing
                                      that if his own Liberal party loses, it will submit to a role in
                                      opposition to Ortega's Sandinista Front.

                                      Aguirre's remarks on the second day of the Miami Herald's
                                      Americas Conference at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables
                                      were part of a panel discussion with fellow foreign ministers
                                      of Honduras, El Salvador and Costa Rica, as well as the
                                      minister of commerce and industry of Panama.

                                      His warning about the potential for political trouble in
                                      Nicaragua notwithstanding, Aguirre agreed with the other
                                      ministers that Central America had made giant strides
                                      toward democratization and in expanded economic
                                      development in the past few years.

                                      Aguirre's partisan pitch portrayed his party leader, the
                                      candidate Bolaños, as increasing his share of popular
                                      support as Ortega's poll figures level off, suggesting they
                                      were in a dead heat in for the Nov. 4 elections.

                                      The Sandinistas, he said, ``can survive an electoral defeat,
                                      but not Mr. Ortega personally,'' because it would be his third
                                      in a row since losing the presidency to Violeta Chamorro in
                                      1990 and then subsequently to Alemán.

                                      So, he said, Ortega might do as he had done in the Alemán
                                      race and decline to concede for six weeks, or keep
                                      Sandinista members away from the assembly, to deny it a
                                      quorum to carry out business.

                                      But he also did not rule out a return to power of Ortega,
                                      saying ``political amnesia seems to be a widespread curse
                                      in Latin America'' at a time when the Sandinista leader
                                      sought to play down his ``disastrous past.''

                                      Costa Rican Foreign Minister Roberto Rojas López paid note
                                      to the dire prediction in his separate speech, saying ``we
                                      hope that everything remains fine in Nicaragua,'' and urged
                                      the adoption next week at a Latin American Summit in Peru
                                      of a letter of democracy worked out by the Organization of
                                      American States.

                                      He called it ``an important instrument'' for protecting
                                      democracy in the Americas.

                                      Honduran Foreign Minister Roberto Flores Bermúdez said
                                      unity is the answer and urged consolidation of the Central
                                      American integration process, noting that Central America
                                      combined is the seventh largest trade partner of the United
                                      States.

                                      El Salvador Foreign Minister María Eugenia Brizuela de Avila
                                      said trade is the answer. ``There is no way of consolidating
                                      democracy without increasing economic development,'' she
                                      said, adding that her government was proposing free-trade
                                      agreements with the United States and the European Union.