Sandinistas gain in Nicaraguan poll

The latest poll of Nicaraguan voter intentions by the Costa Rican polling firm CID-Gallup shows former president Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) gaining on the right-wing former mayor of Managua, Arnoldo Aleman, in the campaign for the October 20 presidential elections.

Of the 1270 Nicaraguans (21% of them in Managua) surveyed from August 22 to 28, 29.8% said they plan to vote for Ortega while 34% plan to support Aleman. The poll's margin of error was 2.7%.

Conservative Party candidate Noel Vidaurre was favoured by 2.4% of those polled, while Alfredo Cesar of the UNO 96 Alliance had 2.1%; 18% said they were undecided. None of the other 19 presidential candidates had more than 2% of voter intentions. (Losing presidential candidates who receive more than 1% of the vote automatically win seats in the National Assembly.)

Former Supreme Electoral Council president Mariano Fiallos, who has agreed to serve as foreign minister under an FSLN government, has reportedly suggested that if the FSLN wins it may change the words of the Sandinista hymn that refer to "the yankee" as the "enemy of humanity". Fiallos emphasised that one of the policies of a new FSLN government would be to avoid a confrontation with the US.
[From Weekly News Update on the Americas, 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY, 10012, USA; email nicanet@blythe.org.]

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