Enlarge imageBy Catherine Bremer
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (Reuters) - Nicaraguans voted for a new president on Sunday with former Marxist guerrilla Daniel Ortega in with a strong chance of returning to power despite opposition from the United States, his Cold War enemy.
Sixteen years after he was thrown out of office by voters tired of a vicious civil war with U.S.-backed Contra rebels, the mustachioed Sandinista leader was ahead of conservative rivals in opinion polls in his third comeback attempt.
Although Ortega has toned down his leftist rhetoric since the 1980s, Washington worries he will team up with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban President Fidel Castro in the anti-U.S. bloc of Latin American leaders if he wins.
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U.S. officials have warned that U.S. aid and investment could drop under a new Ortega government.
Still, many Nicaraguans are disenchanted with the failure of often corrupt pro-market governments to fight poverty, and about a third support the 60-year-old leftist.
"I’m going with Ortega. He is the only one who looks out for the poor. All the others are just for the rich," said William Medina a 44-year-old lawyer standing in line to vote at a Managua polling station.
He said Ortega would have to work with business leaders if he is elected, dropping the confrontation that was a hallmark of the Sandinista government he led after seizing power in a 1979 revolution against dictator Anastasio Somoza.
"Ortega will not have a magic wand to solve problems like health and insecurity. He needs private business," he said.
Voting was due to end at 6 p.m. (7 p.m. EST/midnight GMT) with preliminary results expected hours later.
A beautiful land of tropical rain forests, volcanoes and lakes, Nicaragua is the second-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere after Haiti.
Many are nostalgic for the health and education programs that eased poverty in the first years of Sandinista rule before the civil war and a U.S. embargo wrecked the economy.
’ORTEGA SCARES US’
But others remember the 30,000 killed in the conflict as well as rationing, hyperinflation and the hard-line policies of Sandinista leaders whose alliance with the Soviet Union and Cuba helped turn the country into a Cold War battleground.
"Ortega scares us. He is a danger," said Carolina, a 32-year-old chemical engineer who waited to vote at a school on the outskirts of Managua. "It is very difficult to believe he has changed with friends like Chavez and Castro."
Ortega’s main challenger is wealthy former banker Eduardo Montealegre, a fan of late U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who trained and financed the Contra rebel army.
There were long lines outside polling stations when they opened at 7 a.m. (8 a.m. EST/1300 GMT) but voting was delayed at many because ballot boxes were not ready. Voters sat on buckets and plastic chairs under the hot sun, and many complained of bad organisation.
Candidates need 40 percent of the vote, or 35 percent and a 5-point lead, to win outright on Sunday and most opinion polls put Ortega close to that.
But the leftist, a divisive figure who was once jailed for robbing a bank to fund the revolution, will struggle to win a second-round runoff if he falls short on Sunday.
The right is split between Montealegre and rival conservative candidate Jose Rizo but is expected to unite to defeat Ortega in any second round.
A coffee exporter with a population of 5.1 million people, Nicaragua is the latest stage for a fight between the United States and Venezuela’s Chavez for regional influence.
Opponents complain Chavez effectively bought votes for Ortega by sending cheap Venezuelan fertilizer and fuel to Sandinista-affiliated groups.
Sandinistas counter that Washington has scared voters away from Ortega and is unfairly backing Montealegre.
Ortega says he has changed and won the support of former Contra leaders upset that conservative governments have done little to help veterans and widows from their side in the war.
A Spanish-language version of the John Lennon song "Give Peace a Chance" blasted out at his campaign rallies, where he promised reconciliation and policies to help the poor.
"Poverty is going to disappear in Nicaragua by us loving each other and practicing solidarity," he told tens of thousands of supporters at his final campaign rally this week.
(Additional reporting by Miguel Angel Gutierrez)
