Ortega could win Nicaragua's cliffhanger election

MANAGUA, Nicaragua, Nov 2 (Reuters) Former Marxist revolutionary Daniel Ortega could emerge from 16 years in opposition to become Nicaragua's president on Sunday, helped by the weak record of pro-Washington governments.

Voting in the impoverished Central American nation will be watched closely by the United States, which trained and financed Contra rebels to fight Ortega's Sandinista government in a 1980s civil war that killed 30,000 people.

A Sandinista win would likely irk US President George W Bush, whose father, then president, celebrated the end of Ortega's decade-long rule in 1990.

It would also mark a victory for President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, a US foe. Chavez has shipped cheap fuel to Nicaragua to ease blackouts and to try to boost Ortega's chances.

''Today another revolution is taking place,'' Ortega told cheering supporters at his final rally in Managua yesterday. ''A revolution that will get you out of poverty.'' Opinion polls have Ortega well in the lead, thanks to a split in the ruling Liberal Party. Washington hopes center-right former banker Eduardo Montealegre will stave off an outright first-round defeat and beat Ortega in a runoff.

Nicaragua is still scarred by the 1979 Sandinista revolution against the Somoza family dictatorship and the civil war that followed.

Most Nicaraguans say years of pro-market reforms by governments favored by Washington have created a rich elite but done nothing to improve their lives. Many are angry over a series of corruption scandals.

Die-hard Ortega backers say he deserves another chance at running the country, this time without the ravages of a civil war and a crippling US trade embargo. Ortega lost two previous election attempts to regain the presidency.

''I fought in the 1980s and I am still here,'' said Adolfo Pantojo, 43, at a recent Ortega rally in the northern town of Chinandega.

''If Daniel wins, it will mean the death of so many friends was worth something,'' he said.

At the end of a campaign colored by fierce rhetoric, fireworks and scantily clad dancers, polls show Ortega within a whisker of nailing the presidency in one round.

He needs at least 35 per cent of the vote and a 5-point lead over his nearest rival to avoid a runoff. Some polls show him with enough support but others have him falling short.

Ortega has dropped some of his radical policies from the 1980s and won the support of prominent former Contra leaders.

Rivals have run a series of TV attack ads showing gruesome civil-war footage and charged that Ortega would return Nicaragua to its violent past.

His third comeback attempt has been helped by divisions among Nicaragua's conservative politicians and the death of a popular Sandinista dissident whom many had expected to win.

Montealegre, a millionaire former banker and ally of outgoing President Enrique Bolanos, split from the ruling Liberal Party to run as a center-right candidate. He pledges to create jobs and leave behind the party's corruption-tainted past.

Despite opponents' claims he benefited from a past banking scandal, Montealegre is expected to beat the Liberal Party's Jose Rizo for second place on Sunday, and pollsters see right-wing voters swinging behind him in any runoff.

Trailing behind is center-left Sandinista dissident Edmundo Jarquin. He replaced popular former Managua Mayor Herty Lewites, who had been a favorite to succeed Bolanos but died in July.

Fired up by his chances, Ortega's speeches sometimes verge on the messianic and he has compared the campaign against him to the persecution of Jesus.

''We must forgive them for they do not know the damage they are doing to their own hearts,'' he said this week.

REUTERS DKA SSC1133