Managua - Sandinista presidential candidate Daniel Ortega was leading the presidential election in Nicaragua with 40.04 per cent of the votes, according to partial results released Monday by the Supreme Electoral Council.
Former president Ortega held close to a 7-point lead over his closest rival in the count representing 14.6 percent of the 11,274 polling stations throughout the country, according to the electoral council report issued Monday at 0920 GMT.
To win the election outright in the first round, Ortega would need more than 40 per cent of the vote, or 35-40 per cent with at least a 5-point advantage over the second-placed candidate. If needed, a runoff between the top two finishers would be held within 45 days.
Eduardo Montealegre, candidate of the right-wing Liberal Alliance, polled 33.2 per cent of the total of votes in the preliminary count. Another rightist candidate, Jose Rizo of the Liberal Party, was running third with 19.5 per cent.
The two minor candidates, Edmundo Jarquín of the dissident Sandinista Renewal Movement, and Eden Pastora on the Alternative for Change ticket, received just 6.8 per cent and 0.2 per cent, respectively.
Ortega, leader of the Sandinista National Liberation Front that governed the country from 1979-1990, was leading in ten of the country's 16 provinces, according to the preliminary results.
Early results unleashed the joy of supporters of the sandinista leader, who poured out into the streets of Managua with fire crackers and hooting the horns of their cars.
Montealegre in turn told his followers gathered at a hotel in Managua that the election will have to be settled in a runoff, and criticised alleged irregularities in the election which he termed unacceptable in a democracy.
He stressed that he had at hand 'quick vote counts by serious organizations' which do not agree with the preliminary results announced by the electoral authorities.
Montealegre was joined by representatives of dissident Sandinistas and Rizo's liberals in his criticisms of early results announced at 0630 GMT based on a very small sample of votes. Preliminary results were defined as 'irresponsible' and 'very hurried.'
The election was officially the most closely monitored in Nicaragua's history, with more than 17,000 local and international observers.
Earlier, observers sent by the Organization of American States (OAS), the European Union and the private Carter Centre of former US president and Nobel peace laureate Jimmy Carter all praised the high turnout in the election, and indicated that no major incidents were reported in the voting process.
Former president Ortega (1985-90) is seeking a chance to govern the small Central American country in peacetime, 16 years after a first stormy presidency marked by a civil war that left more than 50,000 people dead. He lost power after an election in 1989, and is his fourth consecutive attempt to win a return to the presidency.
Ortega, 59, appears to have been the intended beneficiary of a new change in electoral laws - approved after a legislative deal between the Sandinistas and Liberal Party - lowering the requirement for a first-round victory from 50 per cent to 35 per cent.
Many analysts noted that Ortega could not win 50 per cent in the three-way race, and that he would likely lose a two-way runoff, when the opposition divided between two right-wing candidates would join to defeat him.
© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
