Nicaragua's Ortega Poised For Re-Election Win

From Reuters:

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, a former Marxist guerrilla leader, looks likely to win re-election on Sunday after heavy social spending won him strong support among the country’s poor.

Ortega has overseen a period of economic progress in his five years in power, backed by financial aid from his socialist ally in Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez.

A former commander of the Sandinista rebel army that won power in a 1979 revolution and a Cold War adversary of the United States, Ortega has solidified his hold on the Central American country with programs to improve health and education, microcredits and gifts of livestock.

“He has helped the poor. Other presidents didn’t do that,” said law student Wendy Gonzalez, 19, after casting her vote in a poor area of the capital of Managua.

Polling booths closed in Nicaragua at 6 p.m. local time (7 p.m. EST) and preliminary results are due from 9 p.m.

Ortega has a big poll lead over a conservative opposition whose two main candidates failed to unite against him.

He was able to run for re-election thanks to a 2009 ruling by the Supreme Court — which his Sandinista party controls — that did away with a ban on consecutive terms.

Backed by Venezuela, Ortega has reduced poverty in this largely agrarian nation and is credited with allowing the private sector to operate freely.

A recent CID-Gallup poll showed he was on course to win nearly half the votes in the election, well above what he would need to avoid a run-off vote.

“President Ortega must win because of his social response to the people,” said Jose Gonzalez, 62, a one-legged, former Sandinista fighter now living in the city of Masaya, who received a free wheelchair from the government.

But Ortega is also blamed for undermining democratic institutions and some critics fear he aims to stay in power indefinitely like Chavez.

Ortega led Sandinista rebels in ousting the Somoza family dictatorship in the 1979 revolution and was the top figure in a government that withstood a U.S.-backed “Contra” rebellion throughout the 1980s.

First elected president in 1984, he was voted out in 1990. He then spent 16 years as the main opposition leader before regaining power in a 2006 election.

His increasing hold on power has worried some.

“How can Ortega call himself a revolutionary when he’s a dictator?” Roberto Betancourt, who has a farm on the outskirts of Managua, said at a polling station. “He has no principles, he’s following in the footsteps of Somoza.”