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Daniel Ortega Embraces God, Free Trade in Nicaragua
The Americans began coming in 2000, snatching up beachfront property at rock-bottom prices and planning tropical retirements. With Nicaragua's war long over and the government on the mend, the investments paid off — thousands of gringos are living rich in the hemisphere's second-poorest nation.
Few banked on Daniel Ortega's return.
Now, the Sandinista leader who was a top U.S. enemy throughout the 1980s has a good chance at winning back the presidency he lost in 1990, according to polls ahead of Sunday's election. That has many worried — especially the investors, business leaders and the estimated 6,000 Americans who call Nicaragua home.
Ortega has sought to calm those fears, signing a pro-business pact Wednesday in which he pledged to promote the private sector and build on free trade agreements. He says he is a different man from the one who rode a tank into Managua in 1979, and now campaigns on a peace-and-love platform, with rose-colored banners.
"Sixteen years have passed since the war ended," Ortega said after a Chamber of Commerce meeting Wednesday. "I ask God to give us a chance to govern in peace together, without political differences, everyone together so that we can pull Nicaragua out of poverty."
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But many find it hard to forget that it was Ortega who seized land and allowed the cordoba, Nicaragua's currency, to devalue by 33,000 percent.
Many foreigners have bought land since Ortega lost the 1990 elections to Violeta Chamorro, ending the Sandinistas' rule. Now some are pulling out of deals in the beachside community of San Juan del Sur, real estate agent Tim Roberts says.
"The people who are nervous are those in the U.S.," said Roberts. "They are the ones who are freaking out and asking for their money back. They think communism is coming back."
But Roberts, an American who has spent most of his 43 years in Nicaragua, said business is still good in the former fishing village, tucked into a cove surrounded by cliffs and jungle. Expensive fishing boats are docked near whitewashed mansions, pickup trucks sport license plates reading "Sweet Home Alabama" and restaurants have names like Big Wave Dave's.
"This place is rocking," he said. "You've got million-dollar homes here for sale, in Nicaragua. Imagine that."
Most residents of San Juan del Sur are more humble. Dean McKinley, 62, moved down from Markleeville, California, four years ago and bought a $5,000 lot near the beach. Today it's worth $12,000.
Mary Evitt, 58, from Lafayette, Louisiana, brought a sprawling hilltop home with several levels of patios overlooking the bay here.
Evitt, executive director of a nonprofit organization that provides medicine to poor remote Nicaraguan villages, says Ortega "scares me because I own property here, because I have money in banks here and I don't know if everything I invested here will be gone."
"I want to see how the elections go," she said. "If all the Americans leave, then these people who are catering to tourists won't have a job."
Evitt said she also is worried that the U.S. could place a damaging economic embargo on Nicaragua if Ortega wins as it has in Cuba.
Nicaraguans living in the U.S., meanwhile, are worried Ortega could tax or block the millions of dollars (euros) in remittances they send home every year. Ortega has denied having such plans.
U.S. officials have been critical of Ortega, warning that the small, Central American nation could lose aid if he becomes president. A message on the U.S. Embassy's Web site warns Americans of possible violence on election day.
Ortega's main opponent, Harvard-educated economist Eduardo Montealegre, has capitalized on those fears, saying Nicaragua will return to the "dark days" of Sandinista rule if Ortega wins on Sunday. He needs 35 percent of the vote while beating his closest opponent by five percentage points to avoid a December runoff.
"The only thing he has done is make Nicaraguans poorer," Montealegre said Wednesday, the last legal day of campaigning. "The poverty we have today is because of Daniel Ortega."
But while business leaders and investors are grumbling, there are few signs of panic.
The cordoba has remained stable, and exports are up 24 percent this year to more than $1 billion.
"People are going to look at actions instead of words," said Juan Carlos Pereira, executive director of ProNicaragua, a public-private agency created to attract investment.
Roberts said he and several others in real estate met with Ortega a month ago and were reassured by the candidate's message.
"Everyone came out of this meeting more relaxed," Roberts said.
There is evidence the Sandinista party has also changed. Its lawmakers in Congress supported the Central American Free Trade Agreement, and some of the country's leading business leaders are Sandinistas.
All agree, Nicaragua must do more to battle poverty in a country that has changed little since the war's end.
While malls have gone up in Managua, large sections remain covered in shacks. Barefoot children beg on main thoroughfares, where new cars speed alongside people in horse-drawn carts. Sprawling, abandoned lots haven't been developed since being leveled by the 1972 earthquake. Many of the capital's streets are still just packed dirt, laced with raw sewage.
Recent rolling blackouts have sometimes forced incoming planes to circle over the darkened capital, waiting for electricity to return so they can land.
At his closing rally Wednesday night, tens of thousands of supporters — many from the capital's slums — came out to cheer Ortega, lured by his promises of better education, more hospitals and reconciliation.
"This is really incredible," said supporter Maria Novoa. "Look how they love Daniel!"
© 2006 Associated Press.
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics: Inside Cover Stories
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