VARIOUS: As Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega heads back to power, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez looks forward to the victory while Cuban vice-president says it's a blow to the U.S.

Former Marxist revolutionary Daniel Ortega was headed back to power on Monday (November 6) in a presidential election 16 years after Nicaragua's voters ousted him to end a brutal civil war with U.S.-trained Contra rebels. Ortega's almost certain victory was a blow to Washington and reinforces an anti-U.S. alliance in Latin America led by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Hundreds of Ortega's Sandinista party supporters, some riding on horseback, took to the streets at sunset on Monday to wave black-and-red party flags and celebrate. U.S. officials said they found irregularities in voting but former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, whose Carter Center has observed elections in Nicaragua since 1990, said any problems were minor and this was the best prepared vote they had seen here. Ortega stopped short of claiming victory on Monday night, preferring to wait until final official results, but he said was ready to work with other parties to "eradicate poverty" and that he wanted "to reassure private sector and international investors that Nicaragua wants to improve, to develop relations with all the international community."" With returns in from 62 percent of polling stations in Sunday's (November 5) election, Ortega of the FSLN party had 38.6 percent support and a big enough lead over his nearest rival to seal a first-round win. "I'm going to give percentages. PLC: 22.93%, FSLN: 38.59%, ALN: 94%," said the president of the Electoral Council Roberto Rivas. Eduardo Montealegre, a conservative and Washington's favoured candidate, trailed well behind Ortega in second place on 30.9 percent. Ortega needs 40 percent of the vote, or 35 percent with a 5-point lead, to avoid a runoff he would almost certainly have lost as Montealegre would have picked up votes from third-placed candidate Jose Rizo. Two respected election observer groups released quick count results on Monday that both gave Ortega a first-round victory. Montealegre refused to concede defeat, however. Ortega has dropped the hard-line policies of his revolutionary past and campaigned on a centre-left platform. The 60-year-old, who was a leader of the popular Sandinista revolution that toppled U.S.-backed dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979, now backs a free trade pact with the United States and says he has no interest in clashing with his old enemy. Still, Washington fears he will stand alongside Venezuela's Chavez and Cuban President Fidel Castro in challenging U.S. interests. Chavez helped Ortega's election campaign by sending cheap fertilizer and fuel to Sandinista-led groups. Chavez anticipated an Ortega win and said he had spoken to him on election night. "Last night I spoke with him. He was very calm, very serene. It was almost midnight when we spoke," said Chavez at a public event in Caracas. "We need to wait the official, definitive results. These are official but not definitive, even when it's been said, the tendency, practically at this irreversible point (in the counting) in a way that we're almost assuredly facing a victory by the Nicaraguan Sandinista party." During his presidency, Ortega allied the country with the Soviet Union and U.S. President Ronald Reagan firmly backed Contra rebels in Nicaragua as Central America became a Cold War battleground. U.S. officials recently warned of a cut in investment and aid to Nicaragua, the second poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere after Haiti, if Ortega was returned to power. Nicaraguans apparently ignored the U.S. warnings. They instead punished conservative candidates after three straight pro-U.S. governments failed to tackle poverty and were hit by a series of corruption scandals. Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage said Ortega's victory was a defeat for the United States. "The victory of Daniel Ortega and the Sandinista Front is a defeat for the U.S. government that has meddled in Nicaragua's internal problems an in its presidential elections with the stated purpose that Daniel Ortega not become president," he said on Cuban national television. "It's an important victory for Nicaragua, and for our region. It's a victory that confirms the changes that are taking place in the region in favour of the more progressive forces, the left, the forces that reject neo-liberalism." It was Ortega's third comeback attempt since 1990, when voters weary of the Contra war and a deep economic crisis turned against him. With the Sandinistas out of power, Contra rebels disarmed months later. Ortega now speaks more of God than revolution but he still worries many Nicaraguans who blame Sandinista rule for the 30,000 war dead, hyperinflation and rationing in the 1980s. His supporters say the Sandinistas tried to help the poor but were crippled by a U.S. embargo and the Contra war.

ITN Source | November 7, 2006

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