Nicaragua Playing Politics with Peace

Headed toward elections, Ortega blows his cool

As the time for the official campaign for Nicaragua's national elections approached, the ruling Sandinistas faced a unique prospect for a Marxist regime: the chance of winning a new term in office through open and honest balloting. President Daniel Ortega Saavedra had been nominated for re-election in a splashy party convention, and he launched a surprisingly effective grass- roots campaign, while opposition candidate Violeta Barrios de Chamorro got off to a pathetic start. Best of all, the 10,000-man army of insurgent contras, deprived of U.S. military support, was skulking in Honduras under a regional peace accord ordering them to disband in...

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