A Time for Repair in Nicaragua

The tensions created by Sandinista candidate Daniel Ortega’s refusal to concede defeat in last Sunday’s presidential election speak to the need to overcome political polarization in Nicaragua. Once the dust settles, Arnoldo Alemn, the apparent winner, should not hesitate to reach out to Ortega and other political leaders in seeking national reconciliation.

Political civility won’t be easily won. The quarrels among Somocistas, Sandinistas, Chamorristas and other rival groups are ferocious. And so are the internal quarrels of the groups. But Nicaragua is too devastated by war and poverty to ignore any sector that might help. The civil wars of the 1970s and 1980s have left the country broken in spirit and the hemisphere’s second-poorest nation.

Economically, Nicaragua cannot compete even with its neighbors in Central America. Even before the bloody decades of war the country was weighed down by immense problems of ancestral poverty, socioeconomic inequality and endemic corruption.

Today’s dire economic condition has led to an increase in violence in cities and towns and a pervasive frustration among Nicaraguan youth about their future prospects. But Nicaragua’s economic, social and political ruin did not take place overnight. Every government in memory--from the long dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza to the dark decade of the Sandinistas to the inept six-year rule of Violeta Chamorro--each did its unfortunate part to drag the country farther down. Now all Nicaraguans should look into the ruins, gather their pride and come together to salvage their nation.