Daniel Ortega is set for a third consecutive term as president of Nicaragua after winning more than 70% of the vote in early counting from Sunday’s election.

The 70-year-old former guerrilla fighter, who is running with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice-president, won 72.1% of the vote, with 66.3% of polling stations counted, the electoral board said.



The announcement sent hundreds of his Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) party supporters out into the streets of Managua to celebrate.

Ortega’s main opponent, the centre-right Liberal Constitutionalist party (PLC) candidate, Maximino Rodriguez, came a distant second with 14.2% , the board said.

“I’m euphoric, thanking God for this opportunity, this triumph, so the people continue to reap benefits,” said Ana Luisa Baez, 55, a widow and mother of four who runs a small store out of her home.

“Thanks to the Sandinista revolution, I have faith I’ll be able to keep moving forward, because we are backed by a good government,” she added, as car horns honked and motorcycle riders wove through Managua’s Plaza de las Victorias waving red and black Sandinista flags.

Speaking after casting his vote on Sunday evening, Ortega, a one-time foe of the US government, could not resist taking a potshot at Nicaragua’s northern neighbour just days before American voters decide on their next leader.



“Now it’s us, the Nicaraguans, who decide, because we no longer have a single Yankee general here,” Ortega said, referring to years of US interference in the country’s affairs. “It’s we Nicaraguans who count the votes, this is a sovereign democracy.”

Emerging as leader of the Sandinista movement that toppled dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979, Ortega led the country during the 1980s, when a civil war against US-backed Contra rebels killed 30,000 people and unleashed an economic crisis.

After losing the 1990 election, Ortega managed to orchestrate a return to power when he became president in 2006.

Opponents have accused the former fighter of trying to set up a “family dictatorship” by appointing relatives to key posts, and after his Sandinistas pushed constitutional changes through Congress that ended presidential term limits in 2014.

The opposition views Murillo’s vice-presidential bid as further evidence of Ortega’s power grab, particularly given that rumours have long swirled over his supposed health problems.

“Ortega gets his way and he doesn’t care if he violates the rights of others,” said Rodriguez, Ortega’s closest rival, polling at 8% support.

“Supposedly he fought against the Somoza dictatorship, and the Sandinistas themselves regard Ortega as worse than Somoza,” he added, arguing that Ortega was trying to cling to power.



Hernan Selva, a 22-year-old engineering student and Ortega supporter, dismissed as “the kicks of a drowning man” the complaints by Rodriguez, who fought the Sandinistas in the 1980s as part of the rightwing paramilitary Contras.



Despite the US and international organisations having voiced concern about Ortega’s stranglehold on power, the World Bank acknowledges that poverty has fallen almost 13 percentage points under his rule.

A substantial part of those gains have been funded by Venezuelan petrodollars that have underpinned welfare programmes, helped private business and slashed energy costs. Ortega has also forged alliances with the business sector, helping Nicaragua to achieve average growth rates of 5% in the past five years.

Despite some ups and downs, Ortega and Barack Obama have maintained a relatively cordial relationship, demonstrating Ortega’s shift from a leftist firebrand to a diplomat who maintains ties with a Cold war enemy.



But democracy remains a touchy subject. A US bill known as the Nica Act seeks to impose conditions on financial assistance to Nicaragua on improvements in democracy, human rights and battling anti-corruption, leading Ortega’s government to decry interference from Washington in September.