Disillusionment and apathy are the twin allies of Nicaragua's right-wing contender for president, Arnoldo Aleman. A former supporter of the old dicatator Somoza, Aleman is well ahead of Sandinista hero Daniel Ortega in the polls. PNS correspondent Roger Burbach, director of the Center for the Study of the Americas, has covered Nicaragua for over two decades.

MANAGUA -- Like voters in neighboring Mexico, Nicaraguans are turning thumbs down on one-time left-wing political heroes. After a decade and a half of revolution, civil war and the fall of the revolutionary Sandinista government, the leading contender in next year's presidential race is Arnoldo Aleman, a former supporter of the old dictator Anastacio Somoza.

If Aleman wins, political cynicism and apathy will be his biggest allies. "We're fed up with politics," says Glenda Meza, a former university student leader who works as an administrator at a local hotel. A supporter of the Sandinistas in the 1990 elections when over 85 percent of the eligible voters turned out, Meza declares, "Like many others in my generation, I don't think it's worth voting next year."

The scandal-ridden record of Violeta Chamorro's presidency has done much to feed the country's political cynicism. "This government is more corrupt than Somoza ever was," says Meza. Perhaps the most infamous case is that of Antonio Ibarra, a high ranking official in Chamorro's entourage who fled to Bolivia after pilfering $1 million in international currency from the government.

All this happened as the economy collapsed under Chamorro, demonstrations and civil disturbances wracked the country, and political infighting broke out across the political spectrum. Antonio Lacayo, the strong man of the Chamorro government who serves as first minister to the President, would like to be elected to the office in his own right. But he has little public support. "Lacayo is despised by the public and even right-wing political parties for his disastrous neo-liberal economic policies," says Peter Marchetti, a veteran political analyst at the Jesuit-run Central American University.

What chances the Sandinistas had of regaining the presidency were largely dashed by the party split that saw former vice president and noted poet Sergio Ramirez bolting from the Sandinista Front and setting up the Sandinista Renovation Movement. The feud was particularly bitter with each side using one or another of the country's newspapers and radios to publicly air charges of corruption, nepotism and homosexuality. "The acrimony of the split turned me off," says Wendy Averruz. Like many rank and file Sandinista supporters Averruz says she "remains a Sandinista in spirit, but I won't be voting for anyone in the elections."

Since the split, the Sandinista Front with former president Daniel Ortega at its head has managed to regroup and even democratize the internal workings of the party. But he still draws only 20 percent support in presidential opinion polls while Ramirez garners just four percent.

The disenchantment with politics as usual led to a brief spurt in public interest in a possible candidacy by Dennis Martinez, the Nicaraguan-born pitching ace of the Cleveland Indians. Standing higher in public preference polls than any other Nicaraguan, some of Martinez' friends recently floated a trial balloon for a Martinez candidacy as head of "La Tercera Via," or the Third Way party. But the story was largely a hoax, as the 40-year old Martinez made it clear he intends to remain in the major leagues as long as his pitching arm holds out.

It is this string of political feuds, corruption and non-candidacies that have made Arnoldo Aleman the leading contender in the opinion polls, with 35 percent. Similar to the French system, the Nicaragua electoral code provides for a second round of elections between the two top presidential candidates if no candidate gets 45 percent of the vote. Few believe that Daniel Ortega, the second ranking candidate, could best Aleman in a head-to-head contest.

Aleman, a right-wing populist who served as mayor of Managua from 1990 until he resigned recently to run for president, evokes little idealism. As mayor he relied on a group of political cronies and a crude ward-style politics. Warned in advance that he would be officially audited, Aleman was able to clear out his files and books before the government auditor got to him. "He collects the spoils of political office but he's shrewder than most in covering up his deeds," says Carlos Fernando Chamorro, who heads CINCO, a media research center in Managua.

In a country where half the populace is unemployed or underemployed, Aleman built a popular base in the capital's barrios through public works projects to construct roads, bridges, public fountains and parks. "The public perception of Aleman is that 'he may be corrupt but he gets things done,"' Chamorro adds. "This may be enough to move Nicaraguans to return the party of the old dictator Somoza to power."