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Huge infusions of foreign aid will also be necessary to fund the government's ten-year $2.5 billion reconstruction plan. The Carter Administration has offered $156.6 million, including a $75 million package pledged last November but appropriated by Congress only a month ago. The embarrassing seven-month delay was due to a protracted debate led by Republican Congressman Robert Bauman of Maryland, who railed against aiding a Marxist-leaning government. The modest amount of the U.S. package, moreover, was hardly an impressive show of support from so wealthy a nation, as Castro was able to point out to his Nicaraguan hosts.
The ultimate survival of the Sandinista regime depends on its ability to avoid a political rift between the leftists and the private sector. One potential crisis flared up last April following the abrupt resignations of two moderate junta members. Their departure was widely seen as a sign of an imminent leftward shift in the national leadership. But the government restored confidence by appointing two moderate replacements.
The most recent source of friction between the Sandinistas and the private sector has been the government's failure to set a specific date for the free elections it originally promised. When no timetable was announced at the anniversary celebration, leaders of the Private Enterprise Council (COSEP), among others, accused the government of "breaking a pledge." Responding to such criticism at a government press conference, Junta Member Sergio Ramirez insisted that the elections had "not been shoved off to one side," but rather that their timing was a "political decision." Earlier, Ramirez had told reporters in the southwestern town of Monimbó that he hoped to see national assembly elections within four years. All parties probably agreed with Ramirez in rejecting "the democracy that Somoza gave us when he bought votes with cheap booze and free meals."