Nicaragua election remains tight

MANAGUA, Nicaragua -- Eleven years after losing power in an election, former Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega has a strong chance to regain the presidency in voting Sunday despite U.S. efforts to dent his campaign. \nFormer U.S. President Jimmy Carter joined thousands of local and foreign monitors scattered across Nicaragua to watch as polls opened, often hours late, in a country where political passions still run high in the wake of a civil war that ended in 1990. \nOnce a socialist revolutionary who wore olive green uniforms, Ortega, 55, campaigned in pink shirts and with the slogan "the path of love." \nIt was meant to help overcome the bitterness many still feel toward his earlier government, which confiscated property, jailed opponents and drafted tens of thousands to fight U.S.-backed rebels while trying to bring jobs and food for all. \nHe faces Enrique Bolanos, 73, of the governing Constitutionalist Liberal party. The former vice president saw most of his property confiscated by the Sandinistas during the 1980s. \nOfficials said first results might not arrive until after midnight. The law bars release of independent exit polls or quick counts before official results are offered. \nWith polls showing the race in a dead heat, the election atmosphere was tense and there were organizational glitches. Many voting places opened long after the planned 7 a.m. start, causing enormous lines. \n"I've been here since 5:30," said Ivan Herrera, who waited impatiently in line at nearly 9 a.m. "I have a mechanic shop. I have work to do." \nClaiming a threat of Sandinista violence, President Arnoldo Aleman said he "will not hesitate" to decree a state of emergency if disturbances break out. \nOrtega suggested Saturday that Aleman could be preparing to annul the elections if they go against his party. \n"We ask God to enlighten the president to avoid causing fear in the population," Ortega said as he voted. "I call on our brother Sandinistas to not let them provoke us" to violence. \nThe rumors were serious enough that Carter told a news conference that it "is not acceptable" to declare a state of emergency if there is merely a close vote. \nBut the former U.S. president, who also monitored the 1990 and 1996 elections here, said, "My prediction is that there will be a fair election." \nBoth Ortega and Bolanos also have promised to revise the constitutional amendments that put the supreme court, electoral council and other agencies in partisan political hands and that blocked most of the country's political parties from reaching the ballot. \nOrtega, too, has vowed to respect private property and free speech and said that the vice presidency, foreign ministry and attorney general's posts would go to prominent figures who were imprisoned by the Sandinistas in the 1980s. \nBut U.S. officials openly tilted against him, expressing concern about his party's past ties to terrorists and recalling its socialist policies of the 1980s. \nWhile the overall economy has grown over the past three years, little of that has reached the poorest Nicaraguans. Millions live on about a dollar a day. \nWhile Aleman's government has increased foreign investment, it remains saddled with a $4 billion foreign debt and is unlikely to meet financial targets agreed upon with the International Monetary Fund as a condition for more debt relief. \nTop income sources, coffee, tourism, assembly plants and money sent from Nicaraguans working abroad, have all slumped recently. Foreign reserves have dropped sharply, leaving Nicaragua with less than three weeks of reserve coverage for imports.