Sandinistas surge back in Nicaragua.

The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) won 87 of Nicaragua's 152 mayoral posts in November elections, including Managua, the nation's capital. With help from Communist Cuba, the Soviet Union, and the Carter administration, the Sandinistas overthrew the government of President Anastasio Somoza in 1979 and established a Communist dictatorship that ruled Nicaragua throughout the 1980s. Top Sandinista Daniel Ortega lost the presidential election to Violeta Chamorro and the United Nicaraguan Opposition (UNO) in 1990, but Sandinista judges and Sandinistas in the federal bureaucracy, legislature, police, military, and local governments have maintained a strong FSLN influence throughout the country.

Managua's new mayor, Dionisio Marenco, a veteran Sandinista, replaces Hetty Lewites, also a Sandinista militant. Acting in concert, the Sandinistas and members of the Liberal Constitutionalist Party have succeeded in passing two bills in the National Assembly stripping the current anti-communist president Enrique Bolanos of much power. This has set the stage for a constitutional showdown when the legislature reconvenes in January.