In the lions' den again Twenty years ago he was the quiet hero who led tiny Nicaragua against the might of the US, then corruption and a sex scandal seemed to have scuppered his ambition. But in November's elections he could be back He did, though, ignore the stipulation that dress should be formal, and turned up in a denim shirt.
Ortega returned to the campaign trail this summer, revisiting the wretched barrios where, in , a tide of rage propelled the Sandinistas to power. But the Ortega who wants to be elected president in November is shaped by the memory that last time the trail ended in 10 years of crushing political defeat, isolation and disgrace over claims that he abused his own step-daughter.
Unbelievably, Ortega is set to rise from the dustbin of history and become Nicaragua's head of state once again. In , Marxist guerrillas overthrew a brutal junta inspired by former dictator Anastasio Somoza and backed by the United States. For 10 years, Ortega's Sandinista army - named after the s national hero Augusto Sandino - held one of the bloodiest front lines of the USA's 'dirty wars' in Central and South America, proxy struggles of the Cold War.
Throughout the Eighties, Ortega's defiance of Ronald Reagan's punishing embargo, and his waging of fratricidal war against murderous rebels, the US-backed 'Contras', entranced the world - an international radical cause ranking alongside Nelson Mandela's campaign to end apartheid. His cause drew battalions of volunteer coffee-pickers from across Europe and America, spawned solidarity movements across the planet. Ortega was the unlikeliest of leaders - awkward and introspective - but he cut an iconic figure in military fatigues and hallmark baseball cap.
Born in , he was a revolutionary from the cradle. His mother was imprisoned after being arrested by Somoza's National Guard for being in possession of love letters which the police insisted were coded political missives. His father was a lifelong foe of the dictatorship; his brother died fighting in the revolution. His first 'job' was to rob a branch of the Bank Of America brandishing a machine gun, so the revolution could arm itself.
