Energy Nicaragua

The Sandinista government said it is increasing electric power rationing effective immediately because of breakdowns and damage to installations caused by sabotage by the Contras. Even night baseball, a favorite for Nicaraguans, was suspended to save electricity, officials said Thursday. The three-hour daily blackouts were being increased to five hours.

The Sandinista government said it is increasing electric power rationing effective immediately because of breakdowns and damage to installations caused by sabotage by the Contras. Even night baseball, a favorite for Nicaraguans, was suspended to save electricity, officials said Thursday. The three-hour daily blackouts were being increased to five hours.

There is an energy in Nicaragua and a confidence--unsupported by any evidence--that something will turn up, which has kept that battered land running on empty well beyond what seems reasonable. Time and again, the energy and confidence have produced results that analysts denied were possible. Free elections were, indeed, held in February, and a coalition of parties hostile to the ruling Sandinista party did, indeed, win.

The foreign ministers of the eight biggest democracies in Latin America gathered last week in Brazil for a meeting that has important implications for the crisis in Central America and that could also have a profound effect on future U.S.-Latin American relations.

The Bush Administration, while maintaining publicly that the U.S.-backed opposition has a good chance to win Sunday's election in Nicaragua, is quietly preparing for an outcome most officials consider more likely: a victory by the Sandinista government. If the leftist Sandinistas win the vote by a significant margin, it would constitute a direct repudiation of almost a decade of U.S.