BY TIM JOHNSON

 WASHINGTON -- In unusually strong terms, the State Department has signaled its ``grave reservations'' over a possible triumph by the leftist Sandinista Front in next month's presidential election in Nicaragua.

 Following a meeting Thursday between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Nicaragua's foreign minister, the State Department issued a little-noticed statement that
 pledged "respect'' for the results of free and fair elections Nov. 4.

 ``However, we continue to have grave reservations about the (Sandinista Front's) history of trampling civil liberties, violating human rights, seizing people's property without compensation, destroying the economy, and ties to supporters of terrorism,'' according to the statement.

 Opinion polls show Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista Front virtually tied with Enrique Bolaños of the center-right Liberal Party, although Bolaños has been gathering strength in recent weeks.

 Ortega ruled Nicaragua from the 1979 Sandinista Revolution until 1990.

 The State Department normally is loathe to appear partisan before presidential elections in foreign countries, so the remarks are a clear signal of distress over a possible Sandinista victory. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the statement ``was looked at pretty carefully.''

 The official said Washington is concerned about the Sandinista Front's relations with Iraq and Libya and its links to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) insurgents and with the Basque separatist movement known by its initials as ETA. The State Department considers both the FARC and ETA as terrorist groups.

 The official said that Ortega's inner circle of aides ``flagrantly violated democratic principles, basic human rights and economic freedoms.''

 The Sandinistas were wildly popular when they seized power in 1979, toppling the dictatorship of the Somoza family. But the economy fizzled, and Nicaragua turned into a Cold War battleground between the Soviet-backed Sandinistas and U.S.-financed ``contra'' rebels.

 After a surprising electoral defeat in 1990, Sandinista leaders seized thousands of properties in the weeks before turning over power.

 Subsequent property disputes involved hundreds of U.S. citizens. Washington halted U.S. assistance to Nicaragua in the early 1990s.

                                    © 2001