By Paul Jeffrey

Managua, 20 August (ENI) - Nicaraguan church leaders have marked the formal beginning of their country’s election campaign by calling on politicians to do more than make empty promises.

Presidential candidates should “make a commitment to the people of Nicaragua that goes beyond electoral promises, avoiding both verbal and physical violence,” stated an August 14 letter from the Council of Evangelical Churches, known here by its Spanish acronym CEPAD.

The council’s letter was addressed to the three presidential candidates competing in the November 4 election. Besides choosing a new president and vice president, Nicaraguan voters will also elect 90 deputies to their National Assembly, as well as 20 representatives to the regional Central American Parliament.

Although the campaign officially got underway August 18, election rallies have been held for months, marked by bitter rhetoric and outbreaks of violence.

Polls show former President Daniel Ortega, candidate of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, enjoying a slim lead over Enrique Bolaños, the current vice president and candidate of the ruling Constitutionalist Liberal Party. Running a distant third is Conservative Party candidate Alberto Saborio.

Only three candidates are running for president. A controversial agreement last year between the Liberals and Sandinistas made it almost impossible for smaller parties to participate in elections. As a result, the Christian Path, an Evangelical party whose candidate took third place in the 1996 presidential elections, is supporting Bolanos. A newer Evangelical party, the Movement for Christian Unity, supports the Sandinistas.

The two-page CEPAD letter, which was signed by the council’s president, the Rev. Jose Alguera, a Nazarene pastor, claimed that Protestants and Evangelicals here were “extremely concerned” about “the lack of employment in the country, banks going bankrupt to the benefit of a few, the astronomical salaries of some public functionaries, the polarization of principal state institutions, and the situation of hunger” in several drought-plagued regions of the country.

The council’s letter contains 18 demands, including the separation of church and state, an end to “high salaries that violate the dignity of the poor,” a minimum wage sufficient to buy 53 basic products for a family of six, the commitment of 7 percent of the gross domestic product to health care, support for food production by small farmers, and a national plan to prevent violence against children and women.

Noting that Nicaragua is one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the western hemisphere, the council called on the candidates to “actively fight corruption so that we can trust the government we elect on November 4.”

The council also demanded the implementation of autonomy laws which guarantee indigenous communities on Nicaragua’s remote Caribbean coast control over their own resources and political life.

Ortega’s opening campaign rally seemed to indicate he heard that concern. On August 18 he officially began his quest to recapture the presidency with a rally before thousands of indigenous people in Waspan, a remote Miskito village in the extreme northeast of the country. The area was torn by violence during the 1980s, when the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency backed armed indigenous groups that waged war against Ortega’s revolutionary government.

Yet that is history. Ortega appeared at his opening rally with Steadman Fagoth, a former leader of the anti-Sandinista armed indigenous groups. Ortega appealed during his speech for reconciliation, admitting his government had mistreated indigenous communities.

“I want to tell you, brother and sister Miskitos, Sumos, Ramas . . .all of you who were victims of the mistaken policies of my government, you were never the ones that were wrong, we were the ones who erred because we never managed to understand you,” Ortega told the crowd.

Ortega promised to heal the wounds that linger from the bitter Cold War conflict. “We need to leave behind hatred and resentment in order to continue forward and resolve all the problems of this country,” Ortega declared.

Nicaragua’s Roman Catholic bishops, in an controversial August 15 declaration, cautioned voters against believing candidates can easily change their politics.

“Conversion is possible, and demanded of Christians, but this should be accompanied by signs of change, as with St. Paul when he stopped persecuting Christians and Zacchaeus when he gave back four times the amount he had stolen,” stated the bishops, whose running feud with Ortega dates back more than two decades.

The bishops were alluding–not very subtly–to Ortega’s past difficulties with the Catholic hierarchy and his participation in the 1990 “piñata” when outgoing officials deeded over to themselves government homes, cars, and businesses before handing over the reins of power.

“Reparation for the evil and scandal, compensation for injury, satisfaction for the violated, these are the conditions of forgiveness,” argued the bishops, whose declaration was read to a press conference here by the secretary of the Nicaraguan episcopal conference, Bishop Juan Abelardo Mata of Esteli.

When deciding for whom to cast their vote, Nicaraguans should, according to the bishops, “take into consideration three factors: the person, the content of their message, and their style. How will this man govern? What is there in their history that demonstrates their capability to perform the tasks. . . and comply with their promises? Do their deeds back up their words? Has a candidate always maintained this attitude and position or is it simply a change of direction motivated by electoral objectives?”

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