Exiles in Miami Hail Vote but Fear They May Be Sent Back : Reaction: They are 150,000 strong. And suddenly they may no longer need political asylum in U.S.

MIAMI — There are more than 150,000 Nicaraguan exiles in Miami, and, for the past few months, most have insisted that the election in their homeland would result in nothing but a Sandinista fraud and a victory for Daniel Ortega.

But Monday, with the votes finally in and President Ortega on his way out, the exile community was a pinwheel of emotions that alternated joy, disbelief and a measure of anxiety about their individual futures.

Joy, certainly: “I was so happy I called my boss and said I was taking the day off,” said Francisco Estrada, a plasterer who joined hundreds of revelers at a shopping center in Sweetwater, a community west of here sometimes known as Little Managua.

And disbelief: “We all thought the Sandinistas were going to dominate the election with their nasty tricks,” said Msgr. Pablo Antonio Vega. “But the people defeated them with their deep-from-the-heart feelings.”

And anxiety: “People are scared to death, even desperate, that they’ll be sent back by the U.S. before the conditions are right, before there is a guarantee of freedom,” said Maritza Herrera, who works with refugees at the Nicaraguan-American Foundation.

While some of the exiles are well-established here, with money in the bank and an English vocabulary at their command, many others are recent arrivals, poor and uprooted. They have been in the process of seeking a political asylum that now seems rendered unnecessary by history.

How many of them will want to go back to their former homes, and how many will want to stay? All day Monday, that was a matter for speculation.

Some exiles put the number at half. Some more. Some less. It is too soon to know. The events of the present were too surprising, those of the future too unpredictable.

There is skepticism about whether the Sandinistas would actually step aside. Banker Roberto Arguello, who left Nicaragua in 1979, was almost sarcastic.

He said: “Once Violeta (Chamorro) is inaugurated, she better right then--with President Bush to protect her--throw into the ocean all the guns the Sandinistas have accumulated. And she better abolish the army. If not, she’ll find herself in exile within three months.”

This city knows much about exile.

In Miami, Nicaraguans are only the second-largest exile group, after the Cubans. For more than a decade, Nicaraguan politics have been part of the stew of intrigue--and the steady influx of refugees--that so shapes the city’s character.

Large numbers of Nicaraguans first began arriving in 1979, with the fall of dictator Anastasio Somoza. Many of them were prosperous, and much of their money had preceded them to safety.

Members of the Somoza family itself settled here. Julio Somoza, the late dictator’s nephew, is part owner of Los Ranchos, a popular steak house.

On Monday, he said he was both shocked and delighted by the election results, but, like many of the more established refugees, he expressed little inclination to return to his former home.

“For us,” he said, including his partner, a former member of Somoza’s National Guard, “it would be very hard to go back. We have roots here, and children.”

Other prominent settlers here include leaders of the Contras, present and former, who for so long commanded the jungle war aimed at overthrowing the Sandinistas. Perhaps best known is Adolfo Calero, who has since broken with the so-called Resistance.

He, too, was joyous Monday. He wants to return, he said. This great day was a “fulfillment” for him and showed that lives were not sacrificed in vain, he said.

“I give credit to the Sandinistas for this peaceful transition to democracy; it’s more than Somoza ever did,” he said.

But he did not want to praise Ortega too much; surely, the Sandinistas must have tried to rig the vote: “I guess all the observers and journalists and the eyes of the world made the difference.”

Calero lives well here. Most of the Nicaraguan refugees do not. Last year at this time, thousands were sheltered in the tunnels of a city baseball stadium. Many of them have no work papers--or have the papers but no job.

About one-third of Miami’s Nicaraguans have pending claims for political asylum, said immigration lawyer Robert Boyer. They have been in a sort of limbo, and the limbo now becomes more tense.

On Monday, the Committee for Poor Nicaraguans in Exile asked the U.S. government to suspend for one year the many layers of the application process--and especially deportation.

In the past, although few Nicaraguans have won asylum, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has been reluctant to deport them into Sandinista hands. Now there is fear.

“I’m just inundated with calls,” Boyer said. “My (Nicaraguan) clients may be happy about the election, but each one is very on edge about how it will affect their own asylum cases.”

So the pinwheel spins. The Nicaraguans are elated; they are also apprehensive.

And this city watches. And it wonders.

Two months ago, Panama’s Manuel A. Noriega fell. Then Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega. Now, in its eyes, there is only one more hemispheric villain to go, one more domino standing on the table.

His name is on the lips of every Cuban here. Radio commentator Armando Perez-Roura on Monday voiced what many were thinking.

“The victory of the Nicaraguan people pulls us even closer to the dignified return of a free fatherhood, of a free Cuba.

“Now there is only Castro.”