* Nicaragua: new candidates for FSLN primary

Two prominent members of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) will challenge party leader and former president Daniel Ortega for the party's presidential nomination, the Sandinista newspaper Barricada reported on January 6. Human rights activist Vilma Nunez de Escorcia and Managua lawyer Alvaro Ramirez, a former army colonel, will compete in a series of primaries in January and February against Ortega, who lost re-election for the presidency in February 1990. Nunez, a lawyer and human rights activist since the 1950s, leads the Nicaraguan Centre for Human Rights and has been highly critical of violent police crackdowns against student and union protesters. Ramirez, a former deputy foreign minister who heads the Association of Democratic Lawyers, is known for defending the poor and currently represents workers suing a US-owned banana company, according to Barricada. Ramirez claims that his candidacy is being supported by demobilised members of the army, by the Mothers of Heroes and Martyrs and by diverse sectors of the FSLN and even some former contras. The FSLN will be the first party in Nicaraguan history to choose its candidates by a primary open to all registered voters. A poll released two weeks ago shows Ortega with only 19.1% support among voters in general, but the two new candidates are considered long shots to beat him at the primaries, since earlier polls have shown that the former president is supported by as much as 84% of Sandinista grassroots activists. Elections are scheduled for October 20.
[From Weekly News Update on the Americas, 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY, 10012, USA; email nicanet@blythe.org.]