Managua - Sandinista Daniel Ortega was officially declared the winner of Nicaragua's presidential elections Tuesday evening, sweeping him back to power after a 16-year absence.
The leftist Ortega, 60, gained 38.07 per cent in Sunday's vote and would not need a runoff, the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) said with 91.48 per cent of the votes counted.
Second placed right-wing candidate Eduardo Montealegre, a former banker and minister of finance and foreign affairs, conceded defeat soon after the report was made public, after receiving 29 per cent of the vote, while another right-wing politician, Jose Rizo, gained 26.21 per cent.
Earlier projections had consistently shown Ortega with a strong lead, but Montealegre had until now held out hope that a change could still spark a runoff election.
Ortega will now get a second chance to govern the country in peacetime, 16 years after a first stormy presidency marked by civil war between sandinistas and the US-sponsored Contras in a conflict that left more than 50,000 people dead.
CSE president Roberto Rivas said the new results were unequivocal, stressing that the election was transparent and that there is no reason to doubt its outcome. More than 2.2 million of Nicaragua's 3.6 million eligible voters cast ballots in Sunday's election, the authority said.
To avoid a runoff, Ortega needed more than 40 per cent of the vote or between 35 and 40 per cent with at least a 5-point advantage over the second-placed candidate.
Ortega, leader of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) which governed the country from 1979-1990 (with Ortega as president for the last five) was widely expected to lose a runoff if it came to that, as the country's conservative voters would probably have united behind his rival.
Former US president Jimmy Carter earlier Tuesday said that his country's government would respect the results of the election even if leftist Daniel Ortega was confirmed the winner.
Carter, who was in Managua along with dozens of monitors from his Carter Centre, said that he talked to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Tuesday morning and that she anticipated that Washington will not object to the electoral results.
'She told us that the United States will take a positive and favourable attitude, whoever wins,' former president Carter told a press conference in Managua.
Sandinista Edmundo Jarquin, who broke from Ortega's party, is in fourth place, with 6.44 per cent of the ballot, and Eden Pastora, a former leader of sandinista and Contra guerrillas, got 0.27 per cent. Both Pastora and Jarquin had already accepted Ortega's victory on Monday.
Ortega's leftist FSLN also appeared headed for victory in legislative elections but without an absolute majority, according to preliminary results announced Tuesday.
Although the FSLN would be the largest bloc in the chamber with 37 seats, it would need to form alliances in order to obtain the majority of 47 votes necessary to pass laws in the Nicaraguan National Assembly, according to the early results.
Nicaraguans elected 90 of the 92 representatives in the unicameral legislature. One seat is reserved for outgoing President Enrique Bolanos and another for the second-placed candidate in Sunday's presidential election - Montealegre.
The ALN is set to become the second-largest force, with 27 legislators including Montealegre and Bolanos.
Rizo's right-wing Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PLC) stands to get 22 seats, giving the two right-wing parties a possible majority if they chose to join forces.
Jarquin's Sandinista Reform Movement (MRS) would get at least six seats.
Sunday's election was the most closely monitored in Nicaragua's history, with more than 17,000 local and international observers.
Carter minimized initial doubts over the vote expressed by the US ambassador to Nicaragua, Paul Trivelli, and two Republican Congressmen who monitored the electoral process in the Central American country.
'There is no doubt of the integrity of the election,' Carter said, citing reports by around 70 experts of his private Carter Centre and also by representatives of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the European Union.
© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
