Ortega Set To Reclaim Nicaraguan Presidency

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Nicaragua Elects Ortega
Nicaraguans elected former Marxist revolutionary Daniel Ortega in the Nov. 5, 2006, presidential elections, bringing the Sandinista leader back to the presidency 16 years after voting him from office.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua, Nov. 6 -- Daniel Ortega, the former Marxist president and nemesis of President Ronald Reagan, appears to have won back Nicaragua's top job.

With 62 percent of precincts reporting, Ortega was comfortably leading the field of five presidential contenders with 39 percent of the vote, virtually ensuring him a first-round win under Nicaragua's electoral rules.

In a public appearance Monday night, Ortega, 60, declined to declare victory until the full count was in. "We are ready to work together [with the other candidates] to eradicate the poverty of Nicaragua, to provide security to the private sector, to provide security to the diverse foreigners in our country . . . and to develop relations with the entire international community," Ortega said, as his wife and campaign manager, Rosario Murillo, stood grinning by his side.

If the results from Sunday's vote hold, they will mark a stunning comeback for the Cold War icon, who has failed twice to regain power since 1990, when voters disillusioned by a decade-long war with U.S.-backed insurgents and government abuses cast his Sandinista National Liberation Front from office.

Ortega's return to Nicaragua's presidency would also constitute an embarrassing setback for the Bush administration. American officials have recently made thinly veiled threats that the United States would impose economic sanctions and other punitive measures if Ortega was reelected, arguing that Ortega has not changed despite his embrace of Catholicism, pronouncements in favor of a market economy and efforts to cast himself as the candidate of "reconciliation."

U.S. officials appeared motivated in part by concerns that Ortega would be an eager partner in pushing an anti-American alliance with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Ortega's return is particularly galling to many in the Bush administration who devoted their careers to getting rid of him in the 1980s.

Longtime political analysts in Managua said that Ortega was too pragmatic to attempt to resurrect controversial policies implemented during his 1979-90 government that drew international condemnation -- such as military conscription, confiscation of some private property and press censorship.

"Ortega is not going to be stupid and commit the mistakes of the past," said Emilio Alvarez, an analyst and critic of the Sandinistas. "He knows that the Soviet parachute is gone and that he is totally dependent on the assistance of the United States, the International Monetary Fund and foreign investment."

Instead, Alvarez predicted that Ortega would try to reach out to Nicaragua's impoverished populace with more modest measures, such as raising taxes to pay for salary increases for low-level government workers and for increased spending on education.

Still Alvarez worried that Ortega "is erratic. He has these messianic dreams of being the savior of the people that make him vulnerable to unworkable economic schemes."

During the campaign, Ortega caused alarm in the business community by suggesting that he wanted to compel banks to lower the fees they charge Nicaraguans living overseas to wire money to relatives back home.

Carlos Chamorro, editor of the respected weekly newsmagazine Confidencial who broke with the Sandinistas a decade ago, agreed. "Nobody thinks the country is going to go belly up with Ortega," said Chamorro, whose mother, Violeta Chamorro, defeated Ortega in the 1990 elections. "But he represents a step backwards because he could bring economic uncertainty and slow the process of investment and job creation."

Ortega's supporters, including many underemployed youths too young to remember the years of Sandinista rule, are convinced that he is the only candidate who empathizes with their plight. As word of his early lead filtered out, they poured into Managua's streets, setting off firecrackers and cheering ecstatically.

Ortega's closest rivals, meanwhile, held news conferences Monday to announce that they were not yet ready to accept defeat.

"This is not over until the last vote is counted," said Eduardo Montealegre of the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance, who trailed Ortega by 8 points in the preliminary count.

Jose Rizo, of the Constitutionalist Liberal Party, said the preliminary results were misleading because they did not include many polling stations in Nicaragua's remote rural areas, where his support is strongest. He said a count by his campaign workers put him close enough behind Ortega to force a runoff election.

However, the results released by the electoral commission were bolstered by similar findings from a "quick count" of a representative sample of ballots released Monday by Ethics and Transparency, a widely respected Nicaraguan civic group that fielded 11,050 observers to every polling and counting center in the nation to carry out their own tally alongside the official one.

At a news conference in Managua on Monday, Pablo Ayon, president of Ethics and Transparency, said their count, giving Ortega 38 percent of the vote, had a margin of error of 1.7 percent.

Although there were complaints of irregularities at some polling stations, international observer teams declared that the election was orderly and lawful.