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Nicaragua won't be next Venezuela - Ortega aide

09 Jan 2007 18:41:55 GMT
Source: Reuters

MANAGUA, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Nicaragua's incoming president, former Marxist leader Daniel Ortega, will not copy the radical economic policies of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, his main foreign ally, a top aide said on Tuesday.

Ortega will rely heavily on Venezuelan aid to fight extreme poverty after he takes office on Wednesday, and is expected to join a Chavez-led group of leftist Latin American governments that worries the United States.

But Jaime Morales, who will be vice president in the new government, said Ortega will not blindly follow Chavez, who this week vowed to nationalize major utilities.

"There will be no nationalizations in Nicaragua," Morales told Reuters in a telephone interview. "We will totally respect private property, entrepreneurial liberty and the market economy."

Morales was a leader of the U.S.-backed Contra rebels that fought Ortega's 1979-1990 Marxist government in a fierce civil war, but he later made up with his former enemy and was his running mate in the November election.

He said Nicaragua suffered "tremendous consequences" for nationalizations under Sandinista rule in the 1980s and that Ortega would be much more pragmatic this time around.

"We are not following the footsteps, paths or directions of any government anywhere in the world, from the right, the left or the center," Morales said.

Still, he did not criticize Chavez, who announced on Monday he would seek increased powers from Venezuela's Congress, nationalize utilities and telecommunications companies and strip the central bank of its autonomy.

"We respect the decisions that Venezuela makes. He is a democratically elected president, much loved in Nicaragua," said Morales.

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Last updated:Tue Jan 9 18:45:11 2007