CROWDS CHEER NICARAGUAN OPPOSITION (2024)

In recent weeks the opposition has seemed to surge, drawing large and often euphoric crowds in provincial towns. UNO, as the opposition group is known, has appeared to gather momentum despite a campaign that many observers say has been disorganized if not inept.

Many diplomats and international observers here still consider the Sandinista Front the odds-on favorite to win the election, but opposition leaders say they have gained credibility after a decade of virtually unchallenged Sandinista rule.

They feel that the Sandinistas now regard them for the first time as a force to be reckoned with. This feeling has been underscored by a string of recent moves by the Sandinistas, who agreed to free imprisoned anti-government rebels, liberalize campaign rules and allow the Roman Catholic Church more latitude.

"We won't lose either way the election goes," said Ernesto Palazio, an UNO activist and former spokesman for the U.S.-backed rebels, or contras. "The revolution is over, finished. The Sandinistas have had to choose between ideology and power, and they can't go back."

In contrast to UNO's low-budget, largely improvised campaign, the Sandinista Front in recent weeks has mounted a major media and mailing blitz pairing new-age marketing techniques with old-fashioned calls to nationalism.

The Sandinistas, whose campaign has seemed to enjoy nearly unlimited resources, have sent out a half-dozen mailings targeting distinct groups of voters, including housewives, professionals, people over 50 and artisans.

Telegrams are being delivered to all registered voters on their birthdays. A computerized telephone system is dialing numbers all over the country with a recorded message from Ortega reminding voters to check Box. No. 5 -- the Sandinistas' slot on the ballot.

Prime-time television is peppered with sights and sounds of the Sandinista campaign: a smiling Ortega kissing babies, white doves, children in Sandinista T-shirts swaying to reggae rhythms and party followers chanting the party's campaign slogan: "Everything will get better!"

"It's a populist, media-image campaign that has worked on all levels," said Sandinista spokesman Paul Oquist. "It was put together by research, the way it's done in the U.S. or France."

Not long ago, it would have been difficult to imagine Chamorro, the matriarch of one of Nicaragua's most prominent families, attracting tens of thousands of people for a peaceful demonstration in downtown Managua. Eighteen months ago, a much smaller opposition gathering in the southern town of Nandaime came under attack by Sandinista-inspired mobs.

Yet with the exception of a few hostile verbal encounters with Sandinista police equipped with riot gear, today's rally was without incident. Only one of scores of UNO campaign rallies since last fall has been marred by serious violence.

Both the ruling Sandinistas and the leaders of the UNO coalition -- which has a generally conservative outlook although it includes anti-Sandinista parties ranging from conservative to communist -- are brimming with confidence.

The Sandinistas, who have predicted victory in the elections, say their 11th-hour blitz is designed to give them as large a margin of victory as possible. UNO activists tend to discount polls taken in January that show the Sandinistas ahead, believing that many Nicaraguans may have said they would vote for the ruling party out of fear.

Lacking a huge volunteer network and political experience, however, UNO cannot come close to mounting a final campaign drive that will rival that of the Sandinistas, who will stage their last major rally Wednesday.

Instead, UNO is counting on an election-day outpouring of popular support, propelled by what the opposition says is deep resentment among Nicaraguans at Sandinista mismanagement of the economy and repression of political expression, including the jailing of political prisoners, harassment of the Catholic Church, land confiscation and press censorship.

"Years of resentment and mistakes are not going to be erased by a slick propaganda campaign and a telephone call," said Ernesto Palazio, a UNO activist and former contra spokesman.

UNO has run an unconventional campaign, playing down its political orientation while emphasizing that the balloting will be secret and that votes can actually alter the course of the nation.

"It's not Violeta Chamorro versus Daniel Ortega," said Chamorro adviser Alfredo Cesar. "It was more important to convince people their votes made a difference, to get people to lose their fear and participate in the process."

The opposition includes many of the wealthiest members of Nicaraguan society, including Chamorro, the publisher of the opposition newspaper La Prensa.

Despite their personal affluence and recent infusions of cash from the United States, members of UNO have been unable to raise significant amounts of money from other sources. Total fund-raising from private sources, UNO officials say, has amounted to less than $100,000.

Foreign diplomats estimate that the Sandinistas have outspent UNO by at least 5-to-1, and perhaps as much as 10-to-1. "Everyone was convinced that UNO with all its American backing didn't need any more money," said one diplomat.

Sandinista party leaders refuse to put a price tag on their campaign, but say that many of the material trappings -- T-shirts, hats, posters and toys -- were donated by international solidarity groups. The telegrams and mailings are distributed primarily through the party's grass-roots volunteer network.

The Sandinista campaign has also intensified one of its main nationalist campaign messages -- that UNO is linked to the contras and former dictator Anastasio Somoza's National Guard. Both the contras and the guard are extremely unpopular in Nicaragua, and UNO includes former members of both groups.

In recent days, the capital has been plastered with "GN-1" posters, standing for "Guardia Nacional-UNO." Ortega has also referred to the opposition as "GN-1" despite requests from the semi-independent Supreme Electoral Council that the term not be used.

But as election day draws near, the Sandinista Front is stressing its "soft" message, even borrowing a marketing truism from Madison Avenue: sex sells.

The government that once reprimanded an opposition newspaper for an advertisem*nt showing women in short pants is now putting up provocative posters and slogans all over the capital aimed at the country's huge teenage and young adult population. The minimum voting age in Nicaragua is 16, and more than half the estimated 1.7 million registered voters are under 30.