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Daniel Ortega's Presidential Make-Over

Nicaragua's Mr. Love and Peace

By Jens Glüsing

Daniel Ortega, the leader of Nicaragua's Sandinista movement, wants to be the country's president once again. To further his cause, the former jungle fighter is now campaigning in civilian clothes as a reformed democrat.

The candidate drives up in a silver-gray Mercedes SUV, preceded by a swarm of bodyguards wearing sunglasses and wielding walkie-talkies. They ruthlessly clear the way into the conference center in the Nicaraguan capital Managua, an ostentatious, incongruous steel and glass structure. "Welcome, Comandante!" the doormen call out. They stand at attention as Daniel Ortega, 60, enters the building, and even the accompanying police officers salute the former president. For them, the one-time revolutionary is still "El Jefe," the Boss.

The brisk, self-important behavior of his entourage stands in stark contrast to that of the Sandinista leader. Ortega has given up the title of Comandante, looks more civilian than military in a pair of jeans and a white shirt, and is already being ridiculed by his detractors as "Daniel Paz y Amor" -- the candidate who only raves about "peace and love" these days. His big smile is apparently meant to exude warmth, but it comes across as wooden and affected. He reaches for every hand that is held out to him, as the John Lennon song "Give Peace a Chance" booms from the loudspeakers.

Ortega's wife Rosario Murillo, a poet, selected this musical appeal to a worldwide brotherhood, and it is now played at the veteran revolutionary's every public appearance. She is in charge of the campaign strategy, which she hopes will help her husband to victory in Sunday's presidential election. It was also Murillo who chose a shocking pink as the background color of his campaign posters, and she has mauve-colored flower petals scattered at every campaign appearance. As a result, the Sandinista leader, criticized in the past for his overly macho approach, comes across as much more of a softy.

Murillo is trying to remake the image of her authoritarian revolutionary leader husband. Ortega ran the country once before, after the fall of the Somoza dictatorship in 1979. As the leader of the Sandinista regime, Ortega was forced to defy then-United States President Ronald Reagan and the US-backed Contra guerillas. Since losing the 1990 election by a wide margin to Christian Democrat Violeta Chamorro, Ortega has made three more unsuccessful stabs at the presidency.

But his prospects are good this time around. He needs only a relative majority of 35 percent to capture the presidency without a runoff election. His toughest opponent, Herty Lewites, the popular former mayor of Managua, died of a heart attack in July. Since then all opinion polls show Ortega as the frontrunner.

The opposition is fractured, with two candidates campaigning for the Constitutional Liberal Party. Banker Eduardo Montealegre, a Harvard graduate and technocrat, is the US's favored candidate. His rival, José Rizo, is seen as a front man for former President Arnaldo Alemán, the Liberals' strong man. Alemán, who managed to move $100 million abroad during his presidency, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison and is currently under house arrest.

But Alemán is by no means powerless. Many political adversaries accuse Ortega of having reached an agreement with the Liberals to fill key political posts with members of the country's two main parties. Indeed, the candidate has bought the support of former opponents with under-the-table offers. In early September, a former leader of the Contra rebels, Jaime Morales, threw his support behind Ortega, who in return named Morales as his candidate for the office of vice president. During the country's revolution, the Sandinistas seized Morales's house, and Ortega turned it into his private residence.

"We made many mistakes"

Nowadays the Sandinista leader is calling for "reconciliation." But many older Nicaraguans remember the hardships they suffered under the Sandinistas -- the long lines in front of shops, the forced recruitment and the ubiquitous corruption.

"We made many mistakes," Ortega admits in Managua's conference center. "But that is part of the past." Ortega is speaking to an audience of 200 market women. Comandante Daniel speaks softly while his wife Rosario moderates. Her hair is dyed a vivid red and she wears silver jewelry.

The candidate does not give interviews and he has turned down offers to participate in a televised debate. Ortega is afraid that he might be asked about the past and his alleged pact with Alemán. One topic that is completely taboo is Ortega's relationship with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

The relationship itself is excellent. Only a few weeks ago, the Venezuelan sent the Sandinistas a tanker full of diesel fuel. Chávez dreams of a Havana-Caracas-Managua axis, a vision that appeals to confirmed Sandinistas, who would like to see Nicaragua become a bastion of anti-Americanism once again. "We expect to see Castro and Chávez at your inauguration," a trade union official informs Ortega. But it's an issue the candidate would rather avoid. During the presidential elections in Peru, Mexico and Ecuador, populist leftist candidates were hurt by their relationships with Chávez. Moderate voters are put off by the prospect of an alliance with the radical Venezuelan.

Respected but not celebrated

Ortega is even controversial within his own party. Eliane Sonariba of Managua says, quietly, that she could certainly "imagine a different candidate," and that she is only campaigning for Ortega "for reasons of party discipline and a sense of obligation."

Many within the Sandinista base feel the same way. The former president is respected but not exactly celebrated. Prominent former fellow revolutionaries, such as poet Ernesto Cardenal and respected author Sergio Ramírez, have had a falling-out with Ortega, and they are suspicious of his sudden transformation into a democrat. "Ortega is acting a part," says Ramírez, a co-founder of the Sandinista Liberation Movement, or FSLN. He warns against election fraud in case the results are close. "The man is capable of anything," he says.

But the election will be monitored. Observers from the European Union will be present, specialists from the Organization of American States (OAS) have already arrived, and former US President Jimmy Carter's Carter Center plans to monitor the vote.

A return of the Sandinistas would be a nightmare for Washington. In fact, US Ambassador Paul Trivelli has already announced that the US plans to curtail foreign aid if Ortega wins the election.

But such threats could prove to be counterproductive. The Americans' attempts to become involved bruises the Nicaraguans' sense of national pride, and Ortega's opponents are averse to being seen as Washington's vassals. Ortega's former comrade-in-arms Ramírez says: "The American ambassador is his most effective campaign helper."

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan