The richest communist

Ortega returned to the presidency of Nicaragua

The victory of the 60-year-old leader of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) Daniel Ortega in the first round of Sunday's presidential elections in Nicaragua is no longer in doubt. He received at least 38% of the popular vote. This is enough for the former revolutionary leader, who this time ran for election under the slogans of preserving private property and adherence to a market economy, to return to the presidency after January 10.

The leaders of the continent’s “red belt” look favorably on Ortega’s successes: Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Bolivian President Evo Morales, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Together they are putting together an anti-American left bloc in Latin America. Chavez, who gave Ortega large sums for his campaign, also supplied his supporters with cheap fuel. The United States, as promised, will now cut financial assistance to this one of the poorest countries in Latin America.

“Since the late 1990s, there has been a nationalist rise in Latin America. People are disappointed in neoliberal reforms and in democracy of the type that is being imposed by the United States,” Boris Martynov, deputy director of the Institute of Latin America of the Russian Academy of Sciences, explained Ortega’s victory yesterday. In an interview with Vremya Novostei, the scientist said: “Nicaragua is looking for a model of market development that best suits national specifics. But there will be no sharp breakthroughs like mass nationalization or deprivatization in Nicaragua.”

“Ortega, who did a lot of stupid things during his first presidency, now has no one to rely on. The Soviet Union, where he visited dozens of times and with which he called exemplary relations, is long gone; ties with Moscow have been severed. Cuba is also on the decline. In 15 years, Ortega has learned enough lessons. Its course will be average between the policies of moderate nationalist regimes such as the Argentine, Brazilian, Uruguayan and radical nationalist regimes of the Venezuelan and Bolivian type,” Mr. Martynov noted.

The election victory is a gift to Ortega for his birthday. On November 11 he turns 61 years old. Coming from a provincial town, he entered the law faculty of the University of Managua, but joined the Sandinista movement and left his studies. In 1967, Ortega was arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison for participating in an armed bank robbery: the party needed money to buy weapons. In 1974, he was released in exchange for hostages taken by the Sandinistas.

Ortega moved to Cuba. There, together with his brother Umberto, he learned the basics of guerrilla warfare. A year later, he returned illegally to Nicaragua and led a group preparing to eliminate dictator Anastasio Somoza. In 1979, the hunt for Somoza ended with his murder in Paraguay, and Ortega became the country's ruler, and his brother Humberto became the minister of defense. The USSR and Cuba supported the Sandinista government during the civil war in Nicaragua. From the USSR they received 50 tanks and the help of 250 military advisers.

It is believed that during the years of Sandinista rule, the USSR, Cuba and international leftist organizations invested tens of billions of dollars in the Nicaraguan revolution. By the time of the collapse of the USSR, the leader of Nicaragua was considered the richest communist in both Americas. But in 1990 he lost the presidential election to Violetta Chamorro and, to his credit, did not resist the defeat by violent means.

Daniel Ortega is married to poet Rosario Murillo. In 1978, they were secretly married by a priest who had defected to the partisans. In 2005, Ortega publicly married Rosario in a Catholic church. They have three children, as well as the daughter of Ortega's wife from his first marriage. In 1998, the stepdaughter of the leader of the FSLN sent a document to the Nicaraguan Human Rights Commission in which she described the sexual abuse to which her stepfather allegedly subjected her from the age of 11. The scandal, as well as the accusations against Ortega of shooting and torturing Indians who fought the Sandinistas, did not prevent him from winning these elections.

Victor VOLODIN, Alexander SAMOKHOTKIN