Ortega sells new image: kinder, gentler, and capitalist
Two presidential candidates face close race in Nicaragua's elections Sunday.
MANAGUA, NICARAGUA
Weeks after the repeat images of jetliners crashing into the twin towers began to give way to regular programming on TV screens around the world, they continue to be broadcast here, and in a most unexpected place - in political ads for Nicaragua's upcoming presidential elections.
The image of the flaming towers and their victims gives way to shots of Sandinista revolution leader, former president, and current presidential candidate Daniel Ortega with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Libya's Muammar Qaddafi, and Cuba's Fidel Castro. The seemingly incongruous images are used to deliver a clear message: Daniel Ortega is on the wrong side of the post-Sept. 11 world order.
Mr. Ortega claims to have thrown off his Marxist mantle and is trying to make his comeback in presidential elections Sunday. The question for many Nicaraguans is whether a President Ortega would cast this poverty-stricken nation into disfavor in US eyes.
"The evidence is in his own words," Liberal party presidential candidate Enrique Bolaños says. "Just less than a year ago, Ortega was once again proudly showing his support for a Libyan terrorist group ... and he always touts his connections with the 'anti-imperialists.' "
In the 1980s, the US-backed Contra rebels battled Ortega's Soviet-backed Sandinista government, turning this small Central American nation into ground zero for the cold war. Today, terrorism has replaced the specter of communism in defining the world order and, once again, Nicaragua, and its upcoming elections, is being pulled into the fray.
"I think everything has changed since Sept. 11 in Nicaragua, both in terms of the elections and in terms of future relations with the United States," says Miguel Orozco, the Central America director for the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank. "The question in Nicaraguans' minds isn't if the Sandinistas are terrorists, but if in this new reality the Sandinistas can work with the United States."
A recent State Department statement expressed serious concerns about a possible Sandinista victory in the Nov. 4 elections given, among other things, the Sandinistas' ties to terrorism supporters.
Results of a CID Gallup poll released Tuesday show Bolaños with 49.6 percent of the valid votes cast and Ortega with 46.4 percent - still considered a technical tie. Analysts consider it noteworthy that a CID Gallup poll released last week marked the first time Bolaños polled ahead of Ortega, if even slightly.
"The US government declarations about the Sandinistas, and the US government saying 'you are friends with us in the war against terrorism or you are on the other side,' and the heavy negative ad campaign by the Liberals are the most likely explanations for Bolaños's rise and Ortega's stagnation," says CID Gallup senior analyst Fred Denton.
Analysts say fears of a deterioration in relations with the US could well sway the roughly 3 percent of undecided voters, who will likely determine the winner.
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