Former Marxist elected president in Nicaragua

MANAGUA, Nicaragua -- Daniel Ortega completed a remarkable comeback Tuesday when the former Marxist revolutionary leader came out on top in a bitter presidential election that U.S. officials fear will give them a new left-wing antagonist in Latin America.

Nearly two decades after the U.S.-financed contra rebels helped drive Ortega from office, the Sandinista leader's victory poses a new challenge in the region for the Bush administration, which must decide whether to treat Ortega as an enemy or accept his assurances that he has moderated his views.

The U.S. State Department said Tuesday that the Bush administration would wait to see the shape of a new Nicaraguan government. But several U.S. officials warned that aid and immigrant remittances to the hemisphere's second-poorest nation would be in jeopardy if Ortega became president and aligned himself with leftist President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

In his fourth attempt to return to power, Ortega won a comfortable victory over four rivals, including Eduardo Montealegre, a Harvard-educated banker and former government minister who enjoyed U.S. backing.
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