(24 May 1995) Spanish/Nat
Carlos Fernando Chamorro, son of Nicaraguan President Violeta Chamorro, says his mother did return democracy to Nicaragua but refuses to allow that democracy to grow.
Chamorro is embroiled in a bitter battle over constitutional reform with the Nicaraguan Congress.
President Violeta Chamorro faces fierce opposition in Congress.
She refuses to budge on blocking constitutional reform and has yet to handle a brewing labor crisis.
President Chamorro ended more than a decade of Sandinista rule when she was elected into office in 1989.
The first years of her government saw the end of the Contra war and the stirrings of peace in Nicaragua.
SOUNDBITE: Spanish
"The principal merit of the government of my mother Violeta Chamorro I believe to have been the achievement of peace, the disarmament of the resistance, the scaling down of the army and the establishment of a policy of national reconciliation."
SUPER CAPTION: Carlos Fernando Chamorro
But her government has failed to bridge the gap between the rich and poor in this Central American nation.
Members of the opposition also accuse her of protecting corrupt government officials.
SOUNDBITE: Spanish
"The country is economically stumped, poverty has increased hugely - as has unemployment. There is a certain macroeconomic equilibrium which satisfies the criteria of the International Monetary Fund, but the Nicaraguan people are poorer than ever."
SUPER CAPTION: Carlos Fernando Chamorro
Chamorro is refusing to back a series of constitutional reforms - one of which would prohibit the Presidential Minister, and Chamorro's son-in-law, from running for the presidency next year.
SOUNDBITE: Spanish
"But the government resists approval of the constitutional reform, something which I consider an extremely serious error on the part of the president and an extremely serious error on the part of the Minister of the Presidency Antonio Lacayo. They are wrong to oppose the reform because I fear the great democratic work of the government could be wasted by this. The government is opposing the institutionalisation of democracy and in this way it appears to be abandoning its own commitment with democracy in this country."
SUPER CAPTION: Carlos Fernando Chamorro
This is the Nicaraguans greatest fear, that the democracy they have fought so long and so hard for will fade into the status quo.

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