Voters defeat communist comeback

MANAGUA, Nicaragua -- A 73-year-old businessman, whose property was once taken away by the Sandinista regime that also jailed him, won Nicaragua's presidency over Daniel Ortega, the Sandinista candidate attempting a comeback 11 years after losing power.

Ortega conceded defeat Monday in his third consecutive election defeat, and supporters of the victorious Liberal Party candidate, Enrique Bolanos, chanted "Strikeout! Strikeout!" as they celebrated.

"Nicaragua is the winner, because we have taken another step toward the consolidation of democracy," Bolanos said. He called the Sandinistas "worthy and able opponents" and said they showed "respect for the institutions of democracy."

Ortega promised to continue working for national reconciliation and for a free-market economy from within the National Assembly for his Sandinista party, which retains a solid core of support in Nicaragua.

"We accept the mandate of the people and congratulate the Liberal ticket," he said. "We are going to be firm allies of a peaceful Nicaragua, a free, just and prosperous nation for which so many Nicaraguans gave their life."

Ortega alluded indirectly to U.S. hostility as one reason for his defeat, but in an apparent effort to improve his relationship with U.S. officials he pledged that in congress, he would battle against drug smuggling and terrorism, two key U.S. policy concerns.

During the campaign, the United States warned of dire consequences if Ortega were to win, invited Bolanos to hand out donated U.S. food and pressured a third candidate to leave the race.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declared the election a success even before Ortega conceded defeat.

With only 13 percent of the vote reported nearly a full day after the polls closed, Bolanos' Constitutionalist Liberal Party led by a margin of 53.7 percent to 44.6 percent for Ortega. The Conservative Party had 1.6 percent.

A scientific quick count by the independent group Ethics and Transparency projected the final count at 55.9 to 42.6 percent, with a 0.5 percent margin of error.

Enormous turnout

In Sunday's election, an enormous turnout overwhelmed an inefficient election bureaucracy. Some voters were still waiting in line at 11:30 p.m., more than five hours after polls were scheduled to close.

But the peacefulness of the election belied claims by outgoing President Arnoldo Aleman that Ortega's supporters had planned election-day violence. Following Aleman's victory over Ortega in 1996, pro-Sandinista students attacked police with rocks and homemade bombs and mortars.

After the Sandinista National Liberation Front came to power in a 1979 revolution, it confiscated Bolanos' farm service company. As head of the country's main business chamber, he became a fierce critic of Ortega and was imprisoned.

His campaign repeatedly reminded voters of the grim side of the Sandinistas' 1979-90 rule: long food lines, a muzzled press and coffins carrying the bodies of draftees in a war against U.S.-backed Contra rebels.