Associated Press

Sandinista presidential candidate Daniel Ortega answers questions from the media following his concession speech in Managua, Nicaragua yesterday after losing Sunday's election against 73-year-old businessman Enrique Bolanos of the Liberal Party.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua - A 73-year-old businessman who suffered expropriation and prison under the Sandinistas won Nicaragua's presidency over Daniel Ortega, the Sandinista leader who was trying to make a comeback 11 years after losing power.

Ortega conceded defeat yesterday in his third consecutive election defeat, and supporters of the victorious Liberal Party candidate, Enrique Bolanos, chanted "Strikeout! Strikeout!" as they celebrated.

"Nicaragua is the winner, because we have taken another step toward the consolidation of democracy," Bolanos said. He called the Sandinistas "worthy and able opponents" and said they showed "respect for the institutions of democracy."

Ortega promised to continue working for national reconciliation and for a free-market economy from within the National Assembly for his Sandinista party, which retains a solid core of support in Nicaragua.

"We accept the mandate of the people and congratulate the Liberal ticket," he said. "We are going to be firm allies of a peaceful Nicaragua, a free, just and prosperous nation for which so many Nicaraguans gave their life."

Ortega alluded indirectly to U.S. hostility as one reason for his defeat, but in an apparent effort to improve his relationship with U.S. officials he pledged that in congress, he would battle against drug smuggling and terrorism, two key U.S. policy concerns.

During the campaign, the United States warned of dire consequences if Ortega were to win, invited Bolanos to hand out donated U.S. food and pressured a third candidate to leave the race.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declared the election a success even before Ortega conceded defeat.

"I think the massive electoral turnout demonstrates that the Nicaraguan people have once again shown their unwavering commitment to democracy," he said.

Ortega's concession came with only 5.4 percent of the vote counted. Later, with 13 percent of the vote tallied, the Supreme Electoral Council showed Bolanos with 53.7 percent compared to Ortega's 44.7 percent.

In Sunday's election, an enormous turnout overwhelmed an inefficient election bureaucracy. Some voters were still waiting in line at 11:30 p.m., more than five hours after polls were scheduled to close.

But the peacefulness of the election belied claims by outgoing President Arnoldo Aleman that Ortega's supporters had planned election-day violence. Following Aleman's victory over Ortega in 1997, pro-Sandinista students attacked police with rocks and homemade bombs and mortars.

After the Sandinista National Liberation Front came to power in a 1979 revolution, it confiscated Bolanos' farm service company. As head of the country's main business chamber, he became a fierce critic of Ortega and was imprisoned.

His campaign repeatedly reminded voters of the grim side of the Sandinistas' 1979-90 rule: long food lines, a muzzled press and coffins carrying the bodies of draftees in a war against U.S.-backed Contra rebels.

That apparently overcame Ortega's "path of love" campaign, which featured pink posters adorned with flowers in an attempt to reach out to non-Sandinista critics of Aleman's government.

Bolanos, who was vice president before resigning to run for the presidency, inherits an economy that is struggling under heavy debts and with losses caused by the global economic slowdown.

After taking office in January, he may also clash with Aleman, who hand-picked the Liberal candidates for congress. Aleman is expected to lead the congressional delegation because of a law he oversaw that gives former presidents an automatic seat in congress - and immunity from legal action.

Aleman's admitted wealth has multiplied many times over since he began public service as mayor of Managua in 1990, and critics accuse him of corruption, which he denies.

During his campaign, Bolanos vowed to fight corruption wherever it might be found, saying that "immunity should not be impunity."

Voters had relatively little choice in the election. Under a Liberal-Sandinista deal that reformed the constitution, third parties were severely restricted and key posts divided up on a partisan basis.

Several parties or candidates that appeared to meet the tough conditions for reaching the ballot were improperly disqualified by the politicized electoral board, according to the independent analyst group Ethics and Transparency.

Ortega, 55, vowed that his electoral alliance with non-Sandinista parties would continue, apparently mapping out a long-term strategy to position the Sandinistas as a peaceful, democratic, left-of-center political party.