World Keeps Watch as Nicaragua Polls Open : Central America: Sandinistas call in 2,000 foreign observers to verify the fairness of today’s vote.

When Jimmy Carter was president, Sandinista guerrillas overthrew a U.S.-backed dictator and ended more than a century of strong American influence in Nicaragua.

Today, after nearly a decade of hostilities with Washington, the Sandinistas have invited Carter here as one of the chief judges of an election that they hope will heal the wounds of another guerrilla war and end the hostilities.

In doing so, they have given Carter a decisive voice among more than 2,000 accredited foreign observers to one of the most scrutinized elections ever held in a sovereign country.

The Sandinistas need Nicaraguan votes to win today’s balloting. But equally important, they need the endorsement of the results by the foreign observers if they are to persuade the Bush Administration to disband the Contras and lift economic sanctions against Nicaragua.

“It is preferable to be invaded by observers to an electoral process in which we have nothing to hide than to confront an invasion of U.S. troops with all its consequences,” President Daniel Ortega said in an interview.

“I think the Sandinistas invited us in because they expected the election to be successful for them and they didn’t want to win a hollow victory,” Carter told reporters Saturday.

Ortega is running for reelection against newspaper publisher Violeta Barrios de Chamorro of the National Opposition Union (UNO) and eight lesser-known candidates. Nicaragua’s 1.75 million registered voters will also pick a 90-seat National Assembly and local governing councils in 131 municipalities.

The election is the first in which all Nicaraguan political forces are contending, and it amounts to a referendum on 10 years of Sandinista rule. Most opinion polls put Ortega ahead, but discontent over the country’s long economic slump is so deep and widespread that many observers believe an upset by Chamorro is possible.

Balloting will be monitored by 160 observer groups from the United States, Europe and Latin America. Joao Baena Soares, secretary general of the Organization of American States, heads the largest delegation, followed by a U.N. team under special representative Elliot L. Richardson, a former U.S. attorney general. Their influence is enhanced by their close working relationship with each other and with Carter. An adviser to the Sandinistas dubbed them “the Holy Trinity.”

The United Nations and OAS were designated as official observers under a February, 1989, agreement among five Central American presidents that also called for disbanding the Contras. But Carter’s team of 35 observers, which includes 12 U.S. congressmen from both parties, is likely to carry the most clout in Washington.

Carter told an election-eve press conference that he had “strongly recommended” to the Bush Administration that it should “move immediately toward reconciliation” with the Sandinistas if they win and the vote is clean.

In an interview, he said that Ortega had assured him that he would meet the key U.S. demand--to stop arming leftist guerrillas in El Salvador--in exchange for normal relations with Washington.

“I think it (Ortega’s offer) would have to be part of a package involving recognition of Nicaragua as a sovereign nation, some successful attempt to address the Contra question, a lifting of the economic embargo against Nicaragua and (bilateral) meetings at the top level, which have been missing for the last eight or 10 years,” the former President said.

Although Carter’s role as an observer is accepted by the government and the UNO, many in the opposition camp view him with suspicion as the U.S. president who helped the Sandinistas take power.

“Carter helped start the Sandinista adventure here,” said Roger Guevara, president of the Nicaraguan Bar Assn. “Now he is trying to correct the situation that he didn’t handle well during his term. But one has to wonder if he really understands their (the Sandinistas’) nature. Does he know all their tricks for stealing an election? I’m not sure he does.”

Part of Carter’s authority here stems from his experience monitoring the May, 1989, election in Panama. Gen. Manuel A. Noriega, the Panamanian strongman, had invited him as a friendly witness, but after observing the vote, Carter condemned the government for widespread fraud.

Carter’s influence also stems from a role he has played throughout the six-month Nicaraguan election campaign. More than an observer, he has been an arbitrator of campaign disputes, helping set rules for this highly charged election.

Last year, Carter got the government and opposition to agree on a means for legally channeling $9 million in U.S. aid to the UNO campaign, the Supreme Electoral Council and international observer groups. He persuaded the Sandinistas to allow Miskito Indian leaders to return from exile without formally breaking their ties with the Contras. And, after violence marred an opposition rally in the town of Masatepe, Carter negotiated new rules on the use of police to control disorders.

Both sides agree that international observers have played an important role in reducing tensions. Opposition activists frequently sought out observers at campaign rallies to ask them to resolve minor disputes, such as how far back the police should stand from the crowd.

But, because the election is taking place against a backdrop of a guerrilla war--the Contras still are occasionally active--fears of election day chaos linger.

Last week, UNO vice presidential candidate Virgilio Godoy declared that he was prepared for disorder. “If the Sandinistas send out their mobs at 4 p.m.,” he warned, “we’ll be out by 6 to defend our votes.”

Hours later, Interior Minister Tomas Borge accused UNO of plotting to discredit the election with cries of fraud. He urged Sandinista supporters “to keep the enemy from organizing a mob” on election day. Some businessmen, fearful of looting, moved expensive merchandise out of their stores.

At the quiet urging of observer groups, both sides toned down their rhetoric and agreed to refrain from organized demonstrations until after midnight. And the government’s Supreme Electoral Council decided to delay the release of its first returns until late tonight.

But the Sandinistas are still worried that the United States is plotting to disrupt the elections. Ortega said he had ordered some state industries to shut down this weekend to build an electricity reserve in case Nicaragua’s U.S.-backed neighbors break an energy-sharing arrangement with his government.

To reduce the potential for violence, Carter and other observers decided not to endorse an opposition request for a public vote count in each of the 4,391 precincts. The votes are to be tallied by precinct captains in the presence of poll watchers from each party. Accredited observers may be present, but voters and journalists may not be.

Meanwhile, the U.N. and OAS teams will each project election results on the basis of a parallel count of official results from a representative nationwide sample of precincts. Those results, to be kept secret, will serve as “built-in protection against undetectable fraud,” Carter said.

UNO officials said last week they were worried about possible fraud at seven precincts where they could field no poll watchers and 234 others where they did not trust the ones they picked. In some of those cases, they say, their poll watchers may be Sandinista infiltrators or might be coerced into staying away.

Carter said he was investigating charges that 22 UNO poll watchers had been arrested in recent days. He said his group would put extra observers at their precincts if they were not released. Foreign observer groups expect to visit nearly all precincts during the day.

The smaller observer groups represent European parliaments, churches, universities, unions, solidarity organizations and think tanks. Some are here to support the government while others, the Sandinistas say, intend to discredit the election.

At least one liberal observer group plans to spend the day dogging the Washington-based Center for Democracy, which receives U.S. government funds. A bemused journalist has decided to follow both of them.

For the Sandinistas, however, the observer teams are serious business. The Sandinistas prevented the Bush Administration from sending an observer group because they felt it would be biased. They also denied visas for most of the observers who were to be brought in by Allen Weinstein, president of the Center for Democracy.

“We felt that to be an observer here, a person must be open-minded and objective,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Alejandro Bendana. “You don’t have to be an admirer of the Sandinistas, but you have to want free and fair elections. That is not necessarily the case with some of the people Weinstein wanted to bring.”

The Sandinistas’ distrust of the group began after the campaign clash in Masatepe on Dec. 10 that left one person dead. The center blamed the Sandinistas for the violence and flew observers to a meeting of the five Central American presidents in Costa Rica to denounce the Nicaraguan government. The OAS said it could not pinpoint the blame.