Nicaragua's Ortega plans changes to constitution

MANAGUA, Jan 14 (Reuters) Nicaragua's new president, former Marxist guerrilla Daniel Ortega, said he would propose constitutional changes to improve democracy in Latin America's second-poorest country.

Ortega, a former president who began his five-year term on Wednesday after nearly 17 years in opposition, did not specify what changes he wants to make to the constitution or when he would push for them.

''What I'm going to propose is direct democracy, that the people exercise power,'' he said in a television interview reported by local media yesterday.

''This is our idea: deep reforms, constitutional reforms,'' said Ortega, the latest in a wave of leftist presidents in Latin America.

The leader of the Sandinista party, which lacks a majority in Nicaragua's legislature, won November's presidential election on promises to fight the hunger, poverty and corruption that previous free-market governments failed to end.

Only Haiti is poorer than Nicaragua in Latin America.

As president in the 1980s, Ortega and his Sandinista movement confiscated businesses and farms after toppling a US-backed dictator.

Those policies, combined with a US economic blockade and a war against US-backed Contra rebels, plunged the coffee-producing country into chaos.

Ortega has said he learned his lesson and has dropped Marxism for a center-left program.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a close ally of Ortega, has said he plans to change his country's constitution to allow presidents to serve terms indefinitely.

Nicaragua's constitution bars presidents from serving consecutive terms.

Reuters AD VP0746