Evangelicals flex growing clout in Nicaragua's election

No presidential candidate could afford to lose that vote, including Mr. Ortega, the revolutionary leader and archrival of the US during the Reagan administration. "For a lot of people in the West, it is surprising to learn that [the Sandinistas] would have such a conservative position on abortion," says Timothy Shah, a senior fellow in religion and world affairs at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. "They are partly trying to attract conservative Catholics, but there is no doubt they are trying to attract the growing number of evangelicals, too."

Cortes estimates that about a third of the nation's evangelicals sympathize with Ortega, whose power coincided with expansive growth of evangelicals in Nicaragua. Mr. Petersen says he witnessed an attitude change toward minority religions throughout the 1980s.

"[Ortega] had an absolute major shift in the way he treated evangelicals," says Petersen, who says he was generously given permits to hold megaceremonies in Revolution Plaza. "To listen to Ortega he says he got to know [evangelicals], that they were among the poor.... And then there are others who say he found this to be a fertile political field," he says.

If anything, the ground is even more fertile today.

At a recent service at Comunidad Hosanna, a Pentecostal church in Managua, congregants lifted bibles into the air as rain thundered against the metal roof and 34 fans whirled. The vast space, which could easily accommodate two soccer fields, filled up as a 12-piece band livened up the crowd.

Many, such as Guillermo Lopez, say they feel more a part of the mainstream every day. "We are growing and that impacts behavior and society," says Mr. Lopez, a car salesman from Managua, who converted from Catholicism over six years ago.

For the presidential election this Sunday, a group of evangelical leaders will act as electoral observers across the country. "I think it's a historical moment in Nicaragua," says Sixto Ulloa, a Baptist pastor and an ombudsman for the government's human rights department. "It's the first time evangelical leaders have been trained to participate in the electoral process."

It is a tectonic shift in a country long ruled by Catholicism. Protestants and Catholics have suffered a tense relationship, perhaps best illustrated by the late Pope John Paul II in 1992 comparing Protestant "sects" to "ravenous wolves."

So when the Catholic Church reached out to evangelical leaders in Nicaragua for the abortion bill, Rojas was not without doubts. He says he didn't believe Nicaragua's evangelical community was ready to join forces with the Catholic Church.

So for their public protest, Rojas, who helped mobilize congregants, suggested that the two groups march from separate locations, converging only before reaching the National Assembly.

In the end, the march drew 20,000 evangelicals and 50,000 Catholics, he says. "It was extraordinary, to be standing there with us and all the bishops," says Rojas. "It made us realize how much power we have together."

The endeavor could inspire future movements, both in Nicaragua and across Latin America.

"If you look at the social values of evangelicals and devout Catholics, there's all kinds of overlap. Working together on them is what's new," says Petersen. "But throughout Latin America there is some real common ground, which will make it easier to cooperate in the future."

• Ms. Llana is Latin America correspondent for the Monitor and USA Today.

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