Chamorro Vows to Unite Nicaragua : Opposition Candidate Kicks Off Presidential Campaign

After winning a bitter fight to lead the main opposition ticket in next year’s elections, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro launched her presidential campaign Sunday, pledging to serve as “a bond of affection” among Nicaraguans deeply divided over a decade of Sandinista rule.

“Unity makes us strong, and with love and determination, we will have victory in our hands,” she told a rally of campaign workers a day after being nominated by the 14-party Nicaraguan Opposition Union. “We have to count on each other--set our divisions aside. All our parties are part of the same thing. Even the Sandinistas will be with us soon!”

But as the 59-year-old newspaper publisher began mapping strategy with her running mate, Independent Liberal Party leader Virgilio Godoy Reyes, leaders of the fragile coalition known as UNO were assessing how the three-day nomination struggle might have hurt their chances of beating the Sandinistas in next February’s vote.

Conspiracy Charged

Four of the bloc’s most conservative parties voted on the 10th and decisive ballot Saturday against the Chamorro-Godoy ticket. The dissidents and their candidate, business leader Enrique Bolanos, complained that parties with scant popular support conspired to deny him the nomination.

The threat of a rupture of UNO faded Sunday when Bolanos declared his candidacy finished. The National Conservative Party, his strongest supporter, met and decided to stay in the three-month-old alliance and back the ticket.

But his defeat made it doubtful that the Superior Council of Private Enterprise, a chamber of commerce with a strong nationwide organization, will work with enthusiasm, if at all, for the anti-Sandinista campaign.

Bolanos, 61, a U.S.-trained engineer who headed the council for five years, refused to endorse the Chamorro-Godoy ticket.

“My vote is secret,” he told reporters Sunday at a council assembly in Granada, where angry, defiant businessmen chanted “Bolanos, presidente!” Gilberto Cuadra, whose term as council president expires this month, said: “I don’t know if I can work for this formula. The way it was chosen makes it weaker. I doubt if it can get the votes. Maybe I should step aside and let someone more enthusiastic about it have this job.”

Contrasting Scenes

The sour mood of the private sector contrasted with the jubilant celebration of Chamorro campaign workers who arrived from throughout the country to greet the two candidates in a packed movie theater. Livened by a brass band, they repeatedly interrupted Chamorro’s speech with howling and applause.

“Thank you and a kiss to all of you,” replied Chamorro.

Previewing her campaign themes, she played on the memory of her husband, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, who was slain in 1978 while trying to rally opposition to President Anastasio Somoza’s dictatorship. She mentioned him three times and said that she still communicates with him.

Before deciding to run, she said, “I consulted with him and with God. I asked if I could be a bond of affection for all of you to achieve democracy, and they told me yes.”

She also emphasized her identity as the matriarch of a politically divided family. Two of her grown children are with the Sandinista government and two are in the opposition, including one who was a leader of the U.S.-backed Contras at the height of the rebels’ war against the Sandinistas.

‘What We Want Is Peace’

“We don’t want any more dead,” she said. “What we want is peace, love, reconciliation, respect and brotherhood, because there are many, many divided families, but this divided family we are going to bring together as soon as possible.”

Chamorro, a conservative without a party, served in the first junta after the Sandinistas overthrew Somoza in 1979. Then she quit and turned La Prensa, the paper she inherited from her husband, into the main anti-Sandinista voice. Many opposition leaders view her as a counterpart to President Corazon Aquino of the Philippines--able to unite them in a broad, symbolic campaign.

Opinion polls rank her as the most popular anti-Sandinista figure, rivaling President Daniel Ortega, who is expected to seek reelection. But questions raised about her health and her grasp of detailed issues made her a controversial candidate for the nomination.

Bolanos’ supporters complained that the tiny, left-leaning Central American Integration Party, a Neo-Liberal Party delegate ignoring his party’s pro-Bolanos sentiment and a minority conservative faction were decisive in handing Chamorro the nomination.

6 Initial Votes

With each party entitled to one vote, she got six--including those of the Socialists, Social Democrats and Nicaraguan Democratic Movement--to four each for Bolanos and Godoy. Her supporters and Godoy’s, which included Communists, Social Christians and another conservative faction, then joined forces to achieve the 10 votes necessary for nomination.

The winning formula gained favor after the Socialists withdrew from a deal that would have given Bolanos the vice presidential slot behind Chamorro. Distrustful of his right-wing views, the Socialists demanded in return that a UNO government submit decisions to a 14-party advisory council. The idea was rejected.

The four pro-Bolanos parties, which include the Liberal Constitutionalists and two Social Christian factions, are to meet today. But any chance that they would break from UNO diminished when the National Conservatives decided to accept the Chamorro-Godoy ticket and focus strategy on demanding a greater share of candidates for the 90-seat National Assembly.

“It’s not a ticket totally satisfactory to the people of Nicaragua,” said Julio Icaza, a Conservative leader. “But if we are not united, we will never defeat the Sandinistas.”

Activists of all four dissident parties attended Sunday’s rally for the two candidates.

Chamorro did not mention Bolanos in her speech. But she told reporters there would be no concessions to the businessmen’s council to win his support.

The growth of UNO as a broad coalition has been resisted by the council, which sees itself as the leader of a more conservative civic opposition. The council’s blueprint for a free-market economy was watered down when UNO adopted its plan of government a week ago.

Many politicians said the council’s support is not critical because Chamorro has independent ties to private businessmen and because UNO’s own grass-roots support is growing.

“We have 4,000 campaign workers,” said Alberto Saborrio, a National Conservative who is UNO’s secretary of organization. “Many of them are businessmen. Bolanos’ attitude is the logical reaction of a defeated candidate, but I don’t think it is transcendental.”