Six months before general elections are to be held in Nicaragua, the possibility of a return to power of the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional has government officials in Washington alarmed. Polls showing Daniel Ortega in the lead early in the campaign have provoked the Bush administration to hint at retaliation should Nicaraguans elect the former president.

A series of polls released in recent weeks show Ortega with as much as 36 percent of the vote. Running neck and neck a few points behind are Vice President Enrique Bolaños, candidate of the ruling Partido Liberal Constitucionalista (PLC), and Noel Vidaurre of the Partido Conservador (PC).

The specter of a new Ortega presidency has brought veiled threats from the U.S. that it might close the Agency for International Development mission here or call a halt to the growing relationship between the two countries’ militaries. The nomination by President George W. Bush of 1980s hardliners to key administration positions may recast U.S.-Nicaraguan relations in Cold War terms. And if the threats weren’t enough, U.S, Ambassador Oliver Garza spent part of Holy Week at a beachside resort in southern Nicaragua trying in vain to convince PLC and PC leaders to put aside their differences and join in a common electoral front against the dreaded Sandinistas.

Yet the elections aren’t locked up for Ortega. More than any other candidate here, he enjoys what pollsters term a “captive vote,” a guaranteed number of supporters who will vote for him on election day no matter what. Yet Ortega also has the highest percentage of citizens who say they would never vote for him. So while he has a guaranteed electoral “floor,” his task in the coming months is raise the electoral “roof” high enough to gain the presidency.

After last year’s controversial “pact” between Ortega’s Sandinistas and President Arnoldo Aleman’s PLC, it’s possible for Ortega to do that with just 35 percent of the vote provided no other candidate has over 30 percent. Otherwise, the winner would need 40 percent. If there’s no winner in the first round, a run-off is held. Ortega, who reportedly gets some campaign financing from Libya’s Mohamar Ghadaffi, feels he must win in the first round, as gaining a victory in a two-candidate contest would be nigh impossible given the low “roof” under which he must operate.

The FSLN has tried to broaden its base by forming an electoral alliance with the Unidad Social Cristiana (USC) and the Movimiento de Unidad Cristiana (MUC). On March 29 Ortega announced that the USC’s Agustin Jarquin would be his vice presidential running mate. On May 4 the two appeared together at prayer vigil in a Pentecostal church in Managua where MUC leader Omar Duarte is pastor. Ortega’s campaign prayer is that Jarquin–jailed six times by Ortega’s government in the eighties and once by current President Aleman–will bring to the ticket an element of integrity and ethics that candidate Ortega ostensibly lacks. Still plagued by the Piñata property scandal a decade ago as well as by accusations of sexual abuse by his stepdaughter Zoilamérica Narváez three years ago, Ortega had considered several Sandinista business leaders for the number two spot, but finally settled on Jarquin after the later accepted a promise of cabinet-level control of social policy and international assistance in an Ortega administration.

The PLC’s poor showing in the electoral polls can be tied to the drunken, despotic image projected by Aleman. Although he’s not the candidate, he makes it clear in public appearances that he’s the power behind the ticket. Presidential candidate Bolaños, although relatively clean compared to his boss, is seen by many as enfeebled by age in a country where the vast majority is young. And he’s made little effort to move out of Aleman’s shadow. With the president increasingly demonstrating uninhibited meanness toward political opponents, the race has taken on a bitterness not seen since the eighties. And Aleman’s scandalous enrichment–a PLC member of the Parlamento Centroamericano accused Aleman this month of having amassed $250 million while in office–has left many Liberals embarrassed.

Under the terms of the Pact, Aleman is assured a seat in the Asamblea Nacional, and its corresponding immunity from prosecution (the same thing that keeps Ortega safe from legal moves by Narváez). Yet a poor showing by the PLC in Congressional elections would leave him vulnerable to moves to strip him of his parliamentary protection.

Although the Pact established a kind of forced bipartisanism in Nicaragua, the PC has come creeping stealthily into the political arena and may prove to be a spoiler. In 1996 it got only 2.4 percent of the presidential vote. In last year’s municipal elections, it garnered 14 percent of the vote nationwide. Candidate Vidaurre is a fresh face, an Asamblea deputy untouched by scandal. While that positions the party in a unique spot to attract voters dissatisfied with the tarnished FSLN and PLC campaigns, the Conservatives lack the grassroots organization of its two main rivals, something that will prove pivotal in getting out needed votes on November 4. And some of the country’s richest families that have been Conservative for generations are abandoning the PC and writing their checks to the PLC this year.

The PC would like to paint itself as a “third way,” a political alternative that could attract dissident Sandinistas and disenchanted Liberals. The PC had hoped to entice former President Violeta Chamorro into heading its electoral slate, but she declined.

Whoever wins in November, the campaign promises to showcase the violent enmity that has characterized Nicaraguan politics in recent months. On April 19, a family of five was brutally murdered near Siuna, in the mountainous northeast of the country. Liberal activists claimed the killers were trying to frighten citizens from voting in an area with strong PLC support. Aleman blamed a group of renegade Sandinistas, and claimed the followers of Ortega were “the same criminals and bankrobbers of the past.” The FSLN denied any involvement, and police in Siuna said they had no evidence that the killings were politically motivated. Yet as the antagonism of the political campaign escalates, such agony may be felt in more communities throughout Nicaragua.

- From Managua, Paul Jeffrey