The Sandinists still have the solid support of a third of Nicaraguans, because of their toppling of Anastasio Somoza, a corrupt dictator, in 1979, their progressive social policies and their spirited if disastrous battle against the United States' intervention.

ECONOMIST: Could the Sandinist leader return to the presidency?

Five years later, in 1979, he became part of the junta that ended the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza Debayle, and in 1985 was elected president.

CNN: Ortega: Third time lucky?

Claimants for compensation will have to prove before a judge that they really owned the land they claim, and that it was unjustly seized (a flexible concept: a judge might accept that the late dictator Anastasio Somoza had indeed awarded himself legal title to some land he had got hold of, but that its confiscation after he was overthrown in 1979 was fair enough).

ECONOMIST: Nicaragua