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 News from Around the Americas | November 2006 
Ortega on Brink of Return
 Kieran Murray - Reuters
| | Sandinista leader and presidential candidate Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo speaks to the press after a meeting with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter at a hotel in Managua November 6, 2006. (Reuters/Daniel Leclair) |
Managua, Nicaragua - Nicaragua's former Marxist guerrilla-president Daniel Ortega is almost certain to complete a long climb back to power on Tuesday with an election win that could upset his old Cold War enemy, the United States.
Ortega had a clear lead as results trickled in from Sunday's presidential vote and victory was expected to be confirmed with a final batch of returns on Tuesday. Thousands of his left-wing Sandinista party supporters celebrated in the streets on Monday night, some on horseback.
Ortega had 38.6 percent support with votes tallied from more than 60 percent of polling stations, almost 8 points ahead of his conservative, pro-U.S. rival, Eduardo Montealegre.
The leftist, who led a 1979 popular revolution and then fought U.S.-trained and financed Contra rebels in a devastating civil war throughout the 1980s, needs to win at least 35 percent and hold a lead of 5 points to take victory in the first round and avoid a dangerous runoff.
His expected return to power 16 years after losing a 1990 election near the end of the Contra war is a setback for Washington and a boost for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is trying to build a Latin American alliance of anti-U.S. leaders.
Ortega, 60, has dropped his Marxism of the Cold War era and now speaks mainly of God, peace and reconciliation.
He stopped short of claiming victory on Monday night but said that, whoever won, he was ready to work with other parties to "eradicate poverty and reassure the private sector and international investors".
He promises to work with business leaders and has backed a trade deal with the United States, but U.S. officials still do not trust him and worry about his friendship with Chavez.
Venezuela's leader helped Ortega's election campaign by sending cheap fertilizer and fuel to Sandinista-led groups. Many expect Chavez to spend some of his country's petrodollars to finance social programs in Nicaragua, which trails only Haiti as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
"Venezuela's coooperation is the best. With help, the Nicaraguan people can get ahead," said Carlos Espinoza, a young Sandinista, at celebrations in the capital Managua. |
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