Nearly three decades after coming to power behind the barrel of a gun, Washington's Cold War-era nemesis Daniel Ortega has joined hands with former battlefield enemies, changed his campaign colors from revolutionary red to peace-loving pink, and could be on the verge of an electoral comeback.

Excellent analysis of what he was back when and what he is now from the Boston Globe's Latin American Bureau Chief Indira Lakshmanan.

New packaging:

The bold red-and-black stripes of the Sandinista flag have been replaced by a soothing pink and turquoise motif on campaign posters, and John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance" blares from speakers at his campaign rallies ...

Substance:

Ortega's election prospects, detractors maintain, say less about his genuine transformation since that painful era than about the desperation and enduring fault lines in Nicaraguan society. 

1980s, [US] saw Ortega as a proxy for Cuban leader Fidel Castro and the Soviet Union, and backed the anti communist Contra forces against the Sandinistas, who had toppled rightist dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979. The Contra war that followed killed 30,000 people, destroyed agricultural and livestock production and, along with a US-imposed embargo, left the economy in shambles.