United States Foreign Relations Nicaragua

Twelve years ago, this town of artisans and craftsmen rose up in arms against dictator Anastasio Somoza, earning its name as the "cradle" of the Sandinista revolution. In a dusty settlement 30 miles away, factory workers and market vendors built a clandestine network of safehouses for the leftist Sandinista guerrillas, who would later name the settlement Ciudad Sandino--after their hero, Cesar Augusto Sandino.

Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, a widowed newspaper publisher, appeared headed for a stunning upset of Sandinista President Daniel Ortega in Sunday's Nicaraguan elections, according to voting results collected and analyzed by the Los Angeles Times. A Times projection based on vote tallies from a nationwide sample of representative polling places showed that Chamorro will get more than 50% of the votes and that Ortega will finish with a percentage in the low 40s.

When Jimmy Carter was president, Sandinista guerrillas overthrew a U.S.-backed dictator and ended more than a century of strong American influence in Nicaragua. Today, after nearly a decade of hostilities with Washington, the Sandinistas have invited Carter here as one of the chief judges of an election that they hope will heal the wounds of another guerrilla war and end the hostilities.

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.

In a covert political operation that could prove pivotal in Nicaragua's hotly contested election, the ruling party of Mexico has secretly contributed more than $11 million in cash and supplies to the reelection campaign of leftist President Daniel Ortega, U.S. officials said Friday. The contributions, which are said to include thousands of T-shirts, posters and gifts for voters as well as cash, were more than three times as valuable as the estimated $3.3 million in U.S.

Friday morning commuters traveling beneath nine Orange County overpasses got the message: "U.S. Hands Off Nicaragua Elections." More than 27 members of the Orange County Pledge of Resistance unfurled banners at 6:30 a.m. at the nine sites in a demonstration supporting Sunday's election pitting the leftist Sandinistas and the U.S.-backed National Opposition Union (UNO) party in Nicaragua. Demonstrator Jay Kaluzny said: "We are out to raise Orange County's awareness on the Nicaraguan elections.

The Bush Administration on Wednesday accused Nicaragua's leftist government of systematically harassing and intimidating opposition politicians during the closing days of the campaign for Sunday's national election. State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said that activists of the National Opposition Union, known as UNO by its initials in Spanish, have told the U.S. Embassy in Managua that government agents "routinely threaten them with loss of job, land, bodily harm or even death."

Problems with Nicaragua's election campaign have been addressed well enough for people to have a free choice when they vote Sunday, United Nations envoy Elliot Richardson said Tuesday. Richardson, a former U.S. attorney general charged by U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar with observing the elections, arrived in Nicaragua on Tuesday and will stay until after the elections.

A 20-member congressional group named by President Bush to observe this month's elections in Nicaragua has been disbanded after members were denied visas by the leftist Managua government, Sen. Richard G. Lugar said Wednesday. Lugar, an Indiana Republican, said President Bush concurs that there is no chance for the group to serve its intended function of determining whether the Feb. 25 balloting is free and fair.

The Bush Administration will end its economic sanctions against Nicaragua and restore friendly relations with the country's leftist government if it wins genuinely free and fair elections this month and ends its support for Marxist rebels in El Salvador, Secretary of State James A. Baker III said Thursday. "If we determine that it is free and fair and we determine that they have indeed stopped their support of subversion in neighboring countries . . .