It's Chávez, er, Ortega vs. the US in Nicaragua

When Daniel Ortega took the stage at an appearance at Elvira Blandon's local park this week, this grandmother who once made tortillas for his army, lit up like a teen. "My Daniel," she says, patting her chest.

But "her Daniel" – the former Marxist revolutionary leader of Nicaragua and the current front-runner in Sunday's presidential election – elicits the opposite response from US officials who once battled communism and are now trying to counter tide of leftist leaders in Latin America – in particular, Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez.

Sixteen years after Mr. Ortega was defeated at the ballot box, and after three failed presidential bids, an election that might otherwise be a blip on the world stage has let loose decades of historical baggage, created preferential prices for Venezuelan oil, and sparked warnings from the US about repercussions if "Comandante" Ortega takes the helm of this tropical nation.

"If [someone else] were running for president of Nicaragua, and said 'I am a friend of Fidel Castro, and Hugo Chávez, and I oppose US policy,' that would be enough to create some friction, to put it mildly," says Otto Reich, who was a senior official in the Reagan administration when it backed the Contra rebels against Ortega. "The fact of history compounds the problem."

After helping to overthrow Nicaragua's Somoza dictatorship in 1979, Ortega and his Moscow-backed Sandinistas repelled intense US intervention during the cold war. The US trained and financed Contra rebels to fight Ortega's Sandinista government throughout the 1980s in a civil war that killed 30,000 people.

Today, opposition campaign ads in Nicaragua feature Ortega in army gear, with the word "danger" across the television screen. Yet these days he opts for a white cotton shirt, pink hats, and touts reconciliation as his main message. During the event at Ms. Blandon's local park, Ortega's wife, Rosario Murillo, took the stage in bangled bracelets and rings, her speech lathered with references to love and solidarity. Ortega stood behind, both hands in the air forming the sign for peace.

Ortega is leading the polls – though he might not win enough votes to win outright in the first round. According to the latest CID-Gallup poll published in La Prensa, 33 percent of 1,242 respondents surveyed would vote for the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) candidate, 22 percent for Eduardo Montealegre of the Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance (ALN), and 17 percent for Jose Rizo of the Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC).

The US has been conspicuously outspoken in its disapproval of a potential Ortega win. US Ambassador Paul Trivelli has cast doubts on Ortega's commitment to democracy. Rep. Dan Burton (R) of Indiana visited Nicaragua this fall and warned that relations with the US could be threatened if Ortega wins.

"I don't see how we can seriously get along with him after all the water under the bridge," says Timothy Brown, who was once a senior US liaison for the Contras and is now at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University..

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