From: "Stasi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [Peoples War] Nicaragua: Sandinistas Hope For Ballot Win - Stratfor Sandinistas Hope for Ballot Win 2000 GMT, 010905 Summary Nicaraguan voters will go to the polls Nov. 4 to elect a new president, with former Marxist ruler Daniel Ortega in a strong position to win. A victory by the Sandinista leader would fundamentally change the balance of power in Central America to the detriment of U.S. economic and strategic interests as well as continue the spread of leftist leaders in Latin America. Analysis Daniel Ortega, the former Marxist guerrilla who ruled Nicaragua for 11 years in the 1980s, is in a strong position to win that country's presidential election on Nov. 4. New voter surveys conducted in August show current Vice President Enrique Bolanos, of the incumbent Liberal Constitutionalist Party, running neck-and-neck with Ortega, of the Marxist Sandinista National Liberation Front. But analysts in Managua and other Central American capitals say Ortega is actually maintaining a slight popular edge over Bolanos. If Ortega wins, it would reinforce Latin America's emerging tilt toward the election of left-leaning candidates opposed to globalization and free-trade policies such as those advocated by the Bush administration. Washington is also concerned that if Ortega wins the presidency, the strategic balance of power in Central America could be altered in ways detrimental to U.S. economic and security interests. Ortega wants to align Nicaragua more closely with Cuba, Venezuela and Libya, and if elected, will likely join the multi-polar anti-American alliance that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is promoting globally. Ortega also can be expected to oppose a Free Trade Area of the Americas anchored on the economy of the United States and favor instead closer commercial ties with the South American Common Market (Mercosur) and European Union. He has also pledged to extend diplomatic recognition to China. Beijing already has been strengthening ties with Cuba and Venezuela since 1998. But if Ortega becomes president, China can expand its strategic presence to mainland Central America, a region which policymakers in Washington have long viewed as part of America's natural geopolitical sphere of interest. At the same time, China would gain leverage in Nicaragua to start displacing Taiwan's diplomatic and commercial influence in Central America. Bush: Sending Signals to Latin America? U.S. President George W. Bush will make his first state visit to Mexico Feb. 16. The one-day visit confirms the president's determination to make bilateral relations a top foreign policy priority. It does not herald a new beginning in relations with the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean, however. That will be determined by Bush's success in persuading Congress to renew fast-track negotiating authority - which appears uncertain at best. Analysis President George W. Bush will make his first official visit abroad to Mexico Feb. 16. Bush will spend one day with President Vicente Fox at Fox's ranch near San Cristobal in the state of Guanajuato. The agenda will include bilateral talks on trade, immigration, drug trafficking and other border issues. White House officials said the meeting is also meant to send a signal to the rest of Latin America that the new president is serious about building strong hemispheric relations. Click here to continue. Related Analysis: Nicaraguan Voters Signal for Change -14 November 2001 For the region itself, an Ortega victory would provide an important boost to neighboring El Salvador's leftist Farabundo Marti Liberation Front in terms of morale and logistics. Polls show the front is gaining ground on the ruling rightist ARENA party well ahead of legislative and presidential elections in 2003 and 2004. A Sandinista government in Nicaragua would also increase the political risks significantly for Mexican President Vicente Fox, who has tried unsuccessfully for the past year to end the nearly eight-year Zapatista indigenous rebellion. The Sandinistas could increase instability in southern Mexico by showing political and logistical solidarity with such armed groups in the state. Ortega would also likely oppose Fox's "Puebla-Panama Plan" to integrate the economies of southern Mexico and Central America. In the end, Nicaragua's presidential race is tied statistically between a candidate whose incumbent rightist political party is synonymous with corruption and a former Marxist ruler whose economic policies raised inflation to 33,000 percent in the 1980s. Ortega, though, has reinvented his image for the campaign. The defiant revolutionary of the 1970s and 1980s has seemingly disappeared; Ortega now describes himself as a social democrat. He promises to continue Nicaragua's free-market policies and respect private property rights, and he even displays a small American flag at his campaign rallies to show he holds no hard feelings against the U.S. government. Despite his efforts, the Bush administration is trying to discredit Ortega and build support for Bolanos among Nicaragua's badly divided right-wing political parties. Lino Gutierrez, the U.S. State Department's second-highest official in charge of the Western Hemisphere, and a former U.S. ambassador to Nicaragua, charged during a speech in Managua on June 1 that Ortega "has ties with terrorist regimes" in Cuba and Libya. Senior State Department officials also said last May that Ortega and the Sandinistas "do not represent the interests" of the U.S. government in Nicaragua. They also warned that if Ortega wins the presidency, President Bush would not vary the policy the United States maintained toward the country during the 1980s when the Sandinistas were in power. An Ortega presidency would not get any trade agreements, immigration deals or foreign aid from the Bush administration, according to U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua Oliver Garza. But Washington's efforts to sway Nicaraguan political parties have had no appreciable effect on the presidential campaign. The right remains divided, and Ortega has retained his core support even though his statistical lead in the polls has dwindled since last June when he was ahead of Bolanos by a 37 percent to 30 percent margin. Although the race has tightened, the Sandinistas still believe Nicaragua's growing economic crisis, its bitterly divided rightist parties and perceived corruption in the ruling party will carry Ortega to a first-round ballot victory. _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. 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