The Rebirth of a Rebel; Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, on the verge of capping a remarkable political comeback, is still Washington's bete noire.

Byline: Joseph Contreras

On a balmy autumn evening thousands of Nicaraguans mill about the main plaza of the city of Leon, waiting for a glimpse of their hero. Guerrilla turned president Daniel Ortega, once the scourge of the Reagan administration, has been out of power for 16 years. But Leon has been a stronghold of Ortega's Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) since 1978, when many residents of the city joined an armed revolt that toppled the late dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, and its citizens recall Ortega fondly. "He has always been my candidate," says Francisca Baca, a 49-year-old mother of five. "He gave us what we never had--housing, jobs, streetlights."

He also brought his country 30,000 percent inflation, was accused by his stepdaughter in 1998 of sexually abusing her from the age of 11, a claim both he and his wife deny, and has lost the last three presidential elections. Yet memories like those in Leon are strong enough--and his opponents weak enough--that Ortega is leading a five-man field in next week's presidential election. Three new polls give the 60-year-old Sandinista a lead of at least five percentage points over his nearest rival, which would be enough to avoid a runoff vote.

At first glance Ortega's rebirth would seem to herald a return to the Yanqui -bashing confrontations of the 1980s, when the Sandinistas' battle against U.S.-backed contra rebels captured the imagination of leftists worldwide. The struggle led to the downfall of several Reagan administration officials, implicated in the sale of weapons to Iran to raise money for the contras. (One of those figures, Oliver North, was in Managua last week railing against Ortega, whom he likened to Mussolini and Hitler.) Venezuela's Bush-baiting President Hugo ChAvez has signed a deal to provide up to 10 million barrels of cheap diesel to Sandinista mayors as a sign of support.

True, a real or imagined endorsement from ChAvez backfired on populist candidates in Peru and Mexico earlier this year. But in smaller Latin American countries where the poor have yet to benefit from the regionwide commodities boom, a current of anger against the rich West still runs strong. "A string of democratic governments hasn't really delivered results, and there is enormous discontent," says Michael Shifter of the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue policy-research group. "Though people are keenly aware that things weren't great under Ortega, there are some who are prepared to give him a second chance."

Nicaragua, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere after Haiti, is ripe for Ortega's promises to fight poverty, distribute property to landless peasants and end the country's acute electricity shortages.

According to government figures, the number of Nicaraguans scraping by on $2 a day or less rose to more than 47 percent of the population between 2001 and 2005. At least 800,000 children have no access to formal education, and a recent poll found that 59 percent of Nicaraguans would emigrate if given the chance. Ortega never misses an opportunity to highlight the country's profound social inequities. "There is economic growth, but in whose hands is the wealth?" he asks the faithful in Leon. "This is the savage capitalism that concentrates wealth among the few and spreads poverty among the vast majority of the people."