Ortega tipped to win despite US oppostition

Daniel Ortega arrives with his wife Rosario Murillo to vote at a Managua polling station November 5. Picture / Reuters

MANAGUA - Nicaraguans voted in huge numbers for a new president yesterday with former Marxist guerrilla Daniel Ortega close to returning to power despite opposition from the United States, his old Cold War enemy.

Sixteen years after he was thrown out of office by voters tired of a vicious civil war with US-backed Contra rebels, the mustachioed Sandinista leader was ahead of conservative rivals in opinion polls in his third comeback attempt.

Washington worries he will team up with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban President Fidel Castro in the anti-US bloc of Latin American leaders if he wins.

- REUTERS