Ortega: I'm Not the Same Revolutionary

Nicaraguan presidential candidate Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) and his wife, Rosario Murillo, greets supporters after holding a private meeting with former U.S. president Jimmy Carter in Managua, Nicaragua on Monday Nov. 6, 2006. Electoral officials have yet to release final results from Sunday's vote, but preliminary results and two of the country's top electoral watchdog groups all give Ortega about 40 percent of the vote which could mean he will be rising once again to Nicaragua's presidency. (AP Photo/Cristobal Herrera) (Cristobal Herrera - AP)

MANAGUA, Nicaragua -- Daniel Ortega says he's not the same revolutionary the United States once tried to overthrow.

The Sandinista leader won his fifth bid for the presidency preaching harmony, love and reconciliation, often with the music of John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance" playing in the background.

Ortega, whose businessman father opposed Anastasio Somoza's dictatorship and fought U.S. occupation from 1927 to 1934, joined the clandestine Sandinista National Liberation Front in 1963 and led its urban resistance. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1967, then released in 1974 after the group kidnapped several top government officials.

He was elected president at the age of 39 in 1984, five years after Somoza's ouster, as the country was in the middle of a war against Contra rebels financed and organized by Washington. Under Sandinista rule, the local currency devalued 33,000 percent and foreign debt ballooned to $12 billion.

But before he lost the presidency to Violeta Chamorro in 1990, Ortega lowered illiteracy rates from 60 percent to 12 percent and built a free health care system.

He also confiscated many homes, including the estate of a former Contra spokesman, Jaime Morales, who is now his vice president. He reconciled with Morales recently by paying him for the sprawling complex.

Ortega has made three unsuccessful runs for the presidency _ in 1990, 1996 and 2001 _ and used congressional immunity to dodge rape allegations filed by a stepdaughter, Zoilamerica Narvaez. He has denied the charges, but Narvaez continues to push her case publicly.

The father of nine children _ seven with his wife and campaign manager, Rosario Murillo _ Ortega is known to enjoy ranchera music. But his favorite song is Frank Sinatra's "My Way."

Now 60 and balding, he has toned down his revolutionary rhetoric, invoking both Lennon and God and promising to favor free trade policies and improve health care and education.