Right-wing parties spent the campaign before Sunday's election accusing one another of corruption, and each claimed to be 'the only one' capable of defeating Ortega at the polls.
Ortega, the leader of the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), made the most of this situation to come out ahead in the three-way race and could obtain the presidency in the first round of voting.
His opponents split what could have been a unified opposition. The Liberal National Alliance (ALN) candidate Eduardo Montealegre accused his former allies in the Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PLC) of harbouring corrupt politicians like PLC leader and former Nicaraguan president Arnoldo Aleman, who is condemned to a 20-year jail term and currently under house arrest.
PLC leaders in turn denounced Montealegre as a traitor and called him 'a rich kid' who never had a place in their team.
The result of this divorce is ever more evident, as the preliminary official vote count favours Ortega who had brought in over 38 per cent of the votes with over 60 per cent of polling places reporting. However, if the right-wing liberals had stuck together they would have won the election, receiving over 50 per cent of the vote.
But even if the mutual accusations were not enough, Nicaraguans were desperate for change.
Sixteen years of right-wing governments since Ortega lost power in 1989 have not managed to improve living standards in the second- poorest country in Latin America.
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) reports poverty affected 2.2 million Nicaraguans in 1990 and 4.2 million today.
Mark Weisbrot, of the Washington-based Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), said per capita income in the country is less today than it was in 1960.
Around 800,000 Nicaraguans migrated in recent years due to the insufficient job creation by the country's governments, sociologist Orlando Nunez said.
Another factor that cleared the way for Ortega was an electoral reform approved in 2000 as a result of an agreement between FSLN and PLC legislators. This lowered to 35 per cent from 45 per cent the portion of votes a candidate must receive to achieve victory without a runoff.
The former Nicaraguan president (1985-90) also capitalised on his rivals' weak spots to strengthen his political comeback, and secured alliances with his former enemies, including the old anti-Sandinista Contras and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.
Ortega's deal with the church became evident when he made peace with the bishops' conference and married his long-time companion Rosario Murillo in a religious ceremony in 2005. Murillo is also the head of the Sandinista leader's campaign and the couple have eight children.
His changing partnership with the former Contras was less subtle. In the best style of an evangelical preacher, on the campaign trail he called the former political opponents his 'brothers' and invited Jaime Morales Carazo to join his team as vice presidential candidate.
Morales Carazo was not only one of the intellectual founders of the Contras, but was also the previous owner of the house Ortega has lived in since he confiscated it through a revolutionary law in 1979. Both said recently that the old conflict had been settled through a 'gentlemen's agreement.'
However, the exact details of the deal that put behind a civil war with more than 50,000 people dead remain a mystery.
© 2003 - 2006 by Monsters and Critics.com, WotR Ltd. All Rights Reserved. All photos are copyright their respective owners and are used under license or with permission. * Note M&C cannot be held responsible for the content on other Web Sites.
Arts - Books - DVD - Forums - Home - Movies - Music - People & Celebrity - Science - Soundtracks - Sport - Tech - TV - World News
About Us - The Team - Advertise - Contact - Join the Team - Privacy - RSS Feeds - Site Map - Terms & Conditions - Webmasters
Servers supplied by Servint
