Foes of Sandinistas Nominate Publisher

Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, publisher of the anti-Sandinista newspaper La Prensa, won the nomination of Nicaragua’s main opposition alliance Saturday to run for president in next year’s elections.

On the same ballot, the Nicaraguan Opposition Union chose Independent Liberal Party leader Virgilio Godoy Reyes, one of two other candidates, as her vice presidential running mate.

The ticket was forged as a compromise after three days of maneuvering among supporters of Chamorro, Godoy and business leader Enrique Bolanos Geyer that mired the coalition, known as UNO, in a tense and often bitter deadlock until the last of 10 secret ballots.

But most leaders of the three-month-old alliance hailed the outcome as the best possible balance of interests among its 14 parties, which range from conservative to Communist. They said it strengthens their campaign against the decade-old Sandinista revolutionary government, which is expected to back President Daniel Ortega for reelection next Feb. 25.

“Violeta represents the conservatives and the business interests, and Godoy represents the center-left,” said Socialist leader Gustavo Tablada as he joined other politicians parading to the publisher’s home to congratulate her. “This is a winning team.”

Chamorro, 59, is the matriarch of an aristocratic family and widow of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, a leading foe of the Somoza dictatorship who was slain 11 years ago. After serving on the first Sandinista junta in 1979, she turned La Prensa into an opposition voice and became the country’s best-known anti-Sandinista figure, but she is an outsider to party politics.

Godoy, 55, who served as labor minister in the Sandinista government before turning against it in 1984, has the strongest organized backing of any opposition party leader.

Seated together in her home Saturday evening, Chamorro and Godoy buried their rivalry and called the nominating struggle a lesson in democracy.

“I am happy to see that Nicaragua has had for the first time a meeting so democratic as the one that just ended,” said Chamorro. “Today is the beginning of the democracy that we will implement in Nicaragua from Feb. 25 on, God willing.”

A score of right-wing Bolanos supporters staged a noisy protest at the UNO headquarters as the result was announced. The 61-year-old businessman did not send congratulations and was unavailable for comment.

The first nominating session ended after five ballots Thursday with Chamorro backed by six parties, four votes short of the 10 needed to win the nomination outright.

Before the second round of balloting, Bolanos forces tried to oust Andres Zuniga as delegate of the small Neo-Liberal Party for having backed Chamorro over objections by the party’s other leaders, who favored Bolanos.

The move failed, thus preserving Chamorro’s edge over both rivals and assuring her first place on all alternative tickets voted upon Saturday: Chamorro-Godoy, Chamorro-Bolanos and Chamorro-Augustin Jarquin. Jarquin is president of the Christian Democratic Party.

But her nomination remained in doubt until her supporters and Godoy’s joined forces on the fifth ballot to gain the necessary votes.