Church in the World

Ortega the fervent Catholic makes a dramatic comeback

Nicaragua

DANIEL ORTEGA of the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) was elected President of Nicaragua this week, after 16 years in opposition. With more than 90 per cent of the votes counted by the night of 7 November, his main opponent, conservative businessman Eduardo Montealegre, conceded defeat by the former left-wing revolutionary, who has become a fervent Catholic.

Ortega, 61, who was at daggers drawn with the Church hierarchy when he was president in the 1980s - he accused them of being hand-in-glove with the CIA - will now be called upon to demonstrate that he really has undergone a Damascene conversion from fiery radical to purveyor of peace, love and reconciliation between erstwhile enemies. He will be well aware that, with just 38 per cent of the votes, far more people voted against him than for him, and he spoke this week of promoting a "new political culture" of constructive cooperation between people of differing views.

Ortega has long won over Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo, the elder statesman of the Nicaraguan Church, who hailed Ortega as the only politician who could heal the wounds of the past and reunite the country. The cardinal performed a marriage ceremony for him and his long-term partner, Rosario Murillo, in Managua Cathedral last year.

But not all Catholics have been impressed by Ortega's transformation. The Nicaraguan bishops' conference, led by Archbishop Leopoldo Brenes of Managua, resolutely refused to take sides in the elections, and the distinguished poet and priest Fr Ernesto Cardenal, an adherent of liberation theology who served as culture minister in Ortega's government, went even further: so disillusioned was he with Ortega that he ended up advising people to vote for Montealegre, a former banker and finance minister. "I think genuine capitalism, which is what Montealegre represents, would be preferable to a phoney revolution," he said last week.

Fr Cardenal, who was publicly scolded by Pope John Paul II when he visited Nicaragua in 1983 for refusing to resign from the Government, considered that the Sandinistas were corrupted by power and betrayed by their leaders. He entitled his memoirs about his time in Government The Lost Revolution.

Sandinismo, named after the nationalist hero, Augusto César Sandino, was, Fr Cardenal said, transformed into a cult of personality, "Danielismo".