ABSTRACT
Many Central Americans view Nicaragua as a beacon of hope, an example of what might be possible some day in the rest of Central America. The Somoza family's corrupt and repressive regime had alienated all sectors of the Nicaraguan population, including the agro-industrial and business elite. Post-revolutionary reconstruction and consolidation of the Sandinista government has been neither painless nor free from contradictions. The objective reality of Nicaragua substantiates and reinforces the claims of the Sandinista National Liberation Front to vanguard status and thus a special place in the political life of the nation. The dominant ideological umbrella under which much of the struggle against Somoza was waged located the operational definition of legitimacy in an electoral process in which all come equally to contend in the "free" political marketplace. The politics of austerity that characterizes the Sandinist economic recovery program takes different forms.
