With the left on the march in much of Latin America, it is no surprise that Nicaragua’s Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega is trying to make a comeback. But Ortega is creating a state of emergency in his party as he tries to diminish the threat posed by Herty Lewites, the former mayor of Managua and the country’s most popular politician. With one demarche, Ortega dismissed the need for a party primary and designated himself as the Sandinistas’ nominee for next year’s presidential election.

What’s striking about Ortega’s move is that he is ready to risk so much political capital, not only expelling Lewites from the party but canceling his challenger’s permits to hold political rallies and forbidding him to use Sandinista party symbols. Yet, despite all this, Ortega has yet to diminish Lewites’s ability to rally the masses. Ortega’s display of raw power is thus merely a reminder of his autocratic ways.

This will be Ortega’s fifth run for the presidency, having lost his last three attempts. It plays handily into the Bush administration’s recall to office of veterans of the anti-Sandinista “Contra War” of the 1980’s, including Elliot Abrams, John Negroponte, Roger Noriega, Dan Fisk, and Otto Reich. In a reminder of that confrontation, Ortega accused his old enemies in the United States of drafting a plan to assassinate him. US Undersecretary of State for Latin America Roger Noriega responded by calling Ortega a “hoodlum.”

Ortega is wagering that attacking Bush will resonate with the Sandinistas and provoke them to close ranks, thereby stifling internal party dissent. But in an already polarized environment, an Ortega-Bush standoff is nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In arguing for his candidacy, Ortega wants supporters to believe that his presidential campaign is part of the wave of recent victories won by the Latin American left. But this is only half right.

A new Latin American left is developing, but Ortega is not part of it. In the context of the new Latin American left, Ortega resembles a shoddy imitation of Fidel Castro without the oil wealth of Hugo Chávez.

The standard bearer of Nicaragua’s new left is Lewites. Like Vázquez, Lagos, Kirchner, and Lula elsewhere in the region, Lewites offers the possibility of a modern and democratic left, socially committed and at the same time capable of orchestrating national solutions while recognizing and negotiating profound differences with the US and the IMF.

These new leaders seek to deal with the US in a manner that avoids alienating a superpower and isolating their countries. To Ortega, such a posture reeks of betrayal, social democratic aberrations and imperialist tendencies.

But despite Ortega’s anachronistic politics, he has a good chance of winning the election in November 2006. He has only to keep his party united and the anti-Sandinista vote divided. Ironically, his principal ally in this adventure will be his old enemy, former President Arnoldo Alemán, who is under house arrest for corruption. Between them, the two caudillos control 90% of the parliament, the Supreme Court, and the Electoral Commission. Together, they can keep Nicaragua’s current president, Enrique Bolaños, in check indefinitely.

Alemán, too, faces a rebellion in his Liberal Constitutional Party (PLC), led by former Treasury Minister Eduardo Montealegre, a presidential hopeful popular in the party’s liberal wing. If Alemán blocks Montealegre’s candidacy in the PLC and pushes him to form another political party, Ortega’s chances for winning the presidency increase sharply. The business interests that finance political campaigns face a difficult dilemma: Is it preferable to align with a PLC dominated by a corrupt Alemán or support a new democratic force and risk helping Ortega win?

Although a three-way race is pure speculation at this point, it’s clear that it offers Ortega the best of all electoral worlds. It’s so tempting that Ortega is likely to help rehabilitate Arnoldo Alemán, betting that freeing him will serve his political interests. The main glitch in this scenario, however, is Lewites.

Polls show that an overwhelming majority of Sandinista voters prefers the former Managua mayor – 72% versus 18% for Ortega. If Lewites is able to organize nationally and maintain a presence in the streets, he could quickly become unbeatable. A poll conducted in January projected that in a four-way race, Lewites would come in first, followed by Montealegre. Ortega would manage only a third-place finish. Alemán, or his candidate, would run dead last.

If voters continue to lean toward Lewites and Montealegre, the two candidates could elect more deputies to the National Assembly than the Sandinistas and the PLC combined. Such an outcome would be a welcome end to the dominance of Alemán and Ortega, who have served Nicaraguans poorly.

While it’s premature to make definitive predictions, the Lewites and Montealegre rebellions have already done more in eight weeks to change the country’s political landscape than anything else in the last two years. As a result, Nicaragua’s people, not its strongmen, may yet choose the next president.