Now Comes the Hard Part

It was an uphill struggle, but the election of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro as president of Nicaragua may eventually look like a relatively easy achievement when compared to the daunting array of problems facing her new government.

First comes the exchange of power with the current Sandinista regime. Ousted President Daniel Ortega is being admirably statesmanlike in his public pronouncements, promising to respect the election results. But Ortega speaks only for the pragmatists in the Sandinista party, and Chamorro may well need his help to keep the reins on ideologues like Interior Minister Tomas Borge, who built the Soviet-style police apparatus in Nicaragua. Ortega must also persuade his older brother Humberto, the defense minister, to depoliticize the Nicaraguan army, now little more than a branch of the Sandinista party. A good first step would be to substantially scale down its 60,000-plus size.

Next comes the challenge of trying to build a government from an unwieldy coalition of 14 political parties ranging from Communist to conservative. If Chamorro can’t pull it off, she may wind up facing a congress in which the largest faction is the Sandinistas. That’s a scenario for political gridlock that could reduce Chamorro to a weak political symbol, revered but not effective.

Then there’s the challenge of demobilizing the Contra army created by the U.S. government to pressure the Sandinistas. There never was much reason for the Contras to exist, and now there is none. But thousands of them are still wandering about the hinterlands of Nicaragua and neighboring Honduras, heavily armed and, in some cases, saying that they will not give up until they’re good and ready.

Which brings us to the issue of Washington’s role in Nicaragua, and Chamorro’s toughest problem of all: rebuilding an economy shattered after almost 12 years of revolution and war. Not all of Nicaragua’s financial troubles--inflation, unemployment, food and fuel shortages--are Washington’s fault. The thievery of the old Somoza dictatorship and the incompetence of the Sandinistas’ economic planners contributed to the chaos. But the embargo imposed by the Reagan Administration hurt by cutting Nicaragua off from its biggest and closest market for its goods. Opening the U.S. market to Nicaragua could do wonders for the psyche, not to mention the pocketbook, of the country’s economically battered businesses and workers. The least President Bush could do is lift all economic sanctions against Nicaragua now.