Nicaragua's Leader Says Ally Venezuela Will Overcome Poll Defeat

The defeat of Venezuela's ruling Socialists in legislative elections on the weekend was but a temporary setback, a key leftist ally in Latin America, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, said Monday.

"As difficult as the horizon seems, we have no doubt: we will live on, and we will win," Ortega said in a public letter sent to his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro.

"The way of the nation, like the ways of the Lord, are mysterious paths that we have to learn to walk," said the former Marxist. "They are demanding paths that require the highest level of readiness and commitment."

The words came a day after Venezuela's conservative opposition coalition trounced the Socialists upholding the ideology of late leader Hugo Chavez, ending the leftwing government's 16-year grip on the national assembly.

The result holds resonance for Nicaragua, which voices the same anti-U.S., anti-capitalist stance made prominent by Chavez and maintained by his handpicked, elected successor Maduro.

In less than a year, Nicaragua is to hold a presidential election. Ortega, a former Sandinista rebel leader turned elected head of state, is widely expected to try for a new term to extend a near-decade in power.

The result in Venezuela, said Nicaragua's opposition coalition, the Independent Liberal Party, "is a lesson that can serve Nicaragua's democrats."