DIVIDED NICARAGUA SET TO VOTE : RADICALLY DIFFERENT VISIONS OFFERED.

Byline: Larry Rohter The New York Times

This town was known as ``the cradle of the insurrection'' for its role in the Sandinista revolution against the Somoza family dictatorship. Then in 1990, after a decade of Sandinista rule, Masaya helped drive the leftists from power by voting decisively for their opponent, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro.

Today, the 133,000 residents of this commercial center south of Managua are disillusioned and deeply divided. With their country scheduled to vote today to elect a successor to Chamorro, about the only point of agreement among people here is that the last six years have been a disappointment, with one lost opportunity after another.

Her years in office have been marked, as she described it at a news conference last week, by ``complete respect for civil liberties,'' as well as the demilitarization of Nicaraguan society.

The astronomical inflation and huge deficits of the Sandinista years have also been brought under control. But the cost has been high: incomes have stagnated and half the population lack regular employment, making Nicaragua the second-poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.

``With Dona Violeta, we did not get what we wanted, which was for our country to be stable and prosperous,'' said Roberto Garcia Acuna, a 43-year-old teacher, as he sat with colleagues outside a pharmacy here. ``We are not at war anymore, that is true, but there is a lot of unemployment, and so there is much discontent in every sector.''

In contrast with 1990, however, in this election voters here and elsewhere in Nicaragua seem unsure of which direction to turn. Both Daniel Ortega, the former president who is once again the candidate of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, and his main right-wing rival, Arnoldo Aleman of the Liberal Alliance, are campaigning against the status quo Chamorro represents, which they characterize as one of widening poverty and a vacuum of leadership.

Aleman and Ortega offer markedly different visions of this country's future and radically different interpretations of its recent violent past. As a result, supporters of both men say, Nicaraguans remain profoundly polarized, unable to put their history behind them and with the unresolved questions of the 1980s still very much on their minds.

Most polls here show Aleman slightly ahead, with the support of more than 40 percent of voters, although his double-digit lead has shrunk to less than five points over the last two months. But as in 1990, Ortega retains the support of about 40 percent of the population, and he and his supporters hope to force a runoff later this year by denying Aleman the 45 percent of the vote he needs to win in the first round.

Ortega has been aided by a makeover of his image and program that makes him appear, as Chamorro rather acidly put it, to be ``disguised as a saint.''

Dressed in white, as opposed to the fatigues he favored in the past, he preaches a policy of conciliation with the United States and the ruling class, promising that ``the blood of Nicaraguans will never again be shed'' even as he continues to adhere to the Sandinistas' traditional gospel of economic and social justice.

``For the poor, the Front is the only alternative, and around here there are lots more poor than rich,'' said Maria Auxiliadora Flores, 36, who runs a small bakery here with her husband, Efrain. ``During the time of the Sandinistas, everyone had work, they gave the poor people houses to live in, and they made sure doctors came to keep children healthy. Now all of that has been lost.''

But Jose Donaldo Gutierrez Soza, a 45-year-old teacher, argues that ``to vote for Daniel Ortega would be like putting a gun to your own head.'' A Sandinista victory, he said, would mean a return to repression and rationing, while Aleman's pledge to take a purely capitalist path is a sure guarantee of progress and prosperity.

``We have a choice between extremes of good and evil,'' Gutierrez said. ``As mayor of Managua, Aleman has given everyone work, cleaned up the streets, and built schools and roads. That's what we need, not a weak government like Dona Violeta's, manipulated by the Sandinistas.''

Among the thousands of former combatants in the country's civil war, both Sandinistas and the Contras who were supported by the Reagan administration, their disillusionment with the last few years of peace has been enough to force them to set aside many of their differences. In the northern town of Quilali, for instance, the two camps now operate separate veterans associations out of the same set of offices.

``We have an interest in common,'' said Jose Endrique Mejia Cruz, a former Contra. ``All of us have screwed-up arms and legs, and all of us get a miserable pension.''

Former combatants on both sides describe themselves as soured by the lack of direction and leadership they see around them. They complain that the hopes they had when hostilities ended in 1990 had been dashed, and say they resent being forced to watch the country's leader engage in petty political squabbling.

``For 10 years I had a cause and a future,'' said Luis Fley, a former farmer and Contra leader who is known as Comandante Johnson to the men he led in the northern mountains of Nicaragua. ``Now all that has been cut short, and I am a government employee, a tax collector, just trying to survive, like everyone else.''

For that loss of optimism, many blame Chamorro. In the last couple of years in particular, the country has seemed adrift, with the president hobbled by health problems and ceding most day-to-day duties of governance to her son-in-law and chief adviser, Antonio Lacayo, and a Cabinet widely regarded as corrupt.

``If Dona Violeta had surrounded herself with honest advisers, we would have been fine,'' said Guillermo Ramirez Ayala, a 58-year-old jeweler here ``But that government has become a nest of vipers, penetrated by corruption and full of people getting loans they never pay back. All kinds of donations come from Europe and Japan, but not even a pencil reaches the classroom.''

At her news conference in the capital last week, Chamorro defended her performance, saying she has faced ``enormous obstacles'' in her effort to turn a dictatorship into a democracy while simultaneously transforming a socialist economy into a free-market economy.

While the problem of poverty ``cannot be solved overnight,'' she said, her government takes pride in having been able to guarantee personal liberties and protect human rights.

But even on that front she has come under criticism. Unlike neighboring El Salvador, which lived through its civil war in the 1980s, Nicaragua has never tried, through a Truth Commission or other official body, to hold accountable those from both the Contras and the Sandinistas who were responsible for killings and other human rights violations.

``If the Sandinista era was characterized by repression, the period of Dona Violeta has been one of impunity,'' said Lino Hernando Trigueros, executive director of the Permanent Commission for Human Rights. ``She promised, and had the obligation, to see the worst cases of the past brought to justice, but has preferred to sacrifice justice in order to avoid problems, and so there has been no true reconciliation.''

Almost against their wills, though, Nicaraguans are hoping that today's moment of decision will deliver them from the impasse. No matter who wins, they say, the electorate will continue to demand that certain basic demands be met, and will be harsh with the rulers if they are not.