Dropping Out

Another candidate withdraws

For the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, convincing the world that next week's national elections will be meaningful has been an uphill climb. The first major setback came when Arturo Cruz Porras, widely considered to be the strongest opponent facing Sandinista Presidential Candidate Daniel Ortega Saavedra, decided once and for all three weeks ago not to run, claiming that the regime would not allow him to campaign freely. Then the next strongest rival, Virgilio Godoy Reyes of the Independent Liberal Party, announced last week that he too was dropping out. "There are not sufficient guarantees for an electoral process," said a Liberal Party official. "The results could not sincerely reflect the majority will of the Nicaraguan people." If that were not enough, Bishop Pablo Antonio Vega, head of the national bishops' conference, last week criticized the junta for using "violent and repressive measures" and imposing "a regime that plunders, imprisons and constantly calls people to arms."

Godoy, a former Labor Minister who resigned last April to run for President, said that he withdrew because the government did not meet his party's longstanding conditions for participating in the election, including loosening press censorship laws and opening a national dialogue with Sandinista critics. "This is only a reaffirmation of what the Liberals have been saying for the past few months," said Godoy of his move. "There is a moment when you have to make a decision."

The Sandinistas blamed the U.S. for pressuring Godoy to drop out, a charge that both he and U.S. officials denied. Of the five opposition parties still in the race, two moderate groups--the Democratic Conservatives and the Popular Social Christians--may also bow out. That would leave only the Sandinistas and three small Marxist parties on the ballot, hardly a balanced choice. Though some Nicaraguans still hope that the government will postpone the elections and woo Godoy and Cruz back into the race, Ortega last week denied any such intentions. "Let it be clear that even if we have to go alone, we are going to go with the elections on Nov. 4," he said. If the Sandinistas' response to news coverage of Godoy's withdrawal is any indication, they are not likely to relax their tight control over the country once they are elected. The story was so heavily censored in the country's leading opposition daily, La Prensa, that the publisher decided to scrap that day's edition.