Nicaragua kicked off its presidential election campaign on Saturday in a race which polls suggest should see leftist former guerrilla Daniel Ortega win a third term in office, according to Reuters. Ortega, a long-time foe of the United States and ally of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, is bidding for a second consecutive five-year period as president after the Supreme Court overturned a ban on re-election in 2009. A member of the Sandinistas, Ortega has led opinion polls for months in the run-up to the Nov. 6 election. Candidates were due to start the campaign by meeting key supporters this weekend, though it was unclear whether Ortega would take part. To be declared the victor in the first round, the winning candidate must secure either 40 percent of the vote or at least 35 percent and an advantage of 5 percentage points over the nearest rival. Opposition lawmakers have accused Ortega of trying to turn Nicaragua into a dictatorship, though the right's hopes of ousting him from office have been dented by the fact it is fielding four separate candidates for the election. A voter survey published on Aug. 3 had Ortega polling 41 percent, with a lead of seven points over his closest rival. A separate poll less than two weeks earlier gave him an advantage of over 40 points with nearly 57 percent support. Ortega, 65, also served a single term as president in the 1980s in Nicaragua, which depends heavily on exports of agricultural goods, like coffee, bananas and tobacco.
