Chavez and Ortega Sworn in As Presidents

For a day of two inaugurations separated by 1,314 miles, a late flight and an ideological time warp, it was apt for one of the new presidents to quote Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, was sworn in for a third consecutive term at a morning ceremony in the capital, Caracas, and several hours later, in Managua, Daniel Ortega was sworn in as president of Nicaragua.

Mr Chavez, a social democrat turned US-bashing communist revolutionary, had a plane waiting to whisk him to the Nicaraguan capital to congratulate Mr Ortega, a US-bashing communist revolutionary turned social democrat.

Latin America's political storms have hurtled the two men in opposite directions but they remain allies and the Venezuelan did not want to miss the Sandinista's return to power.

First, however, Mr Chavez had a date with history. In front of a packed national assembly he accepted the presidential sash, raised his right hand and declared: "Fatherland. Socialism - or death! I swear it." After a pause, he added: "I swear by Christ - the greatest socialist in history."

Since being re-elected in a landslide last month the former paratrooper has tightened his grip on power and promised to nationalise key sectors of the economy to shunt the world's fifth biggest oil exporter away from capitalist inequality and privilege.

The past eight years of his rule, which started with Blairite rhetoric about a third way, laid the groundwork for what will henceforth be accelerating radicalisation on the principles of Trotsky's permanent revolution, said Mr Chavez. "We have hardly begun. It will be permanent."

Turning to look into the camera he saluted and said "Hello, Fidel", probably correctly assuming that his mentor, the ailing Cuban leader, was watching.

Citing the Bible to show Jesus was a communist, the president attacked Venezuela's Roman Catholic church and the head of the Organisation of American States for criticising his decision not to renew the licence of an opposition-aligned TV station.

Several times the assembly rose in standing ovations - but not when Mr Chavez repeated a promise to unite his sprawling ruling coalition into a single party, a move which would further clip his allies' dwindling autonomy.

A glance at his watch showed he had spoken for more than two hours, delaying the departure for Managua. "The acceleration of time," he mused, "it's relative". Albert Einstein, he added, was not only a genius but a socialist.

Whether Venezuela is moving ahead towards an innovative leftwing economic model, or moving backwards towards Cuban-style authoritarianism, is a question for ordinary Venezuelans to answer, not physicists.

In Nicaragua, too, time was spinning. In the 1980s Mr Ortega was a Marxist revolutionary president who fought US-backed Contra guerrillas in a bloody civil war which made him a White House nemesis. The first President George Bush called him "this little man" and an "unwanted animal at a garden party".

Voted out of office in 1990, the shrewd tactician renounced Marxism and made a triumphant electoral comeback last November after casting himself as a moderate and reconciler who would deliver his nation from poverty.

The second President Bush phoned him this week to say the past should be put aside, and sent a delegation to yesterday's ceremony.

In contrast to his combative Caracas counterpart, Mr Ortega, with a weaker grip on power, has sought to soothe his country's independent media as well as the Catholic church. He appalled some Sandinistas, who remember when the movement championed secularism and women's rights, by backing a total ban on abortion.

Where Mr Chavez's campaign slogan was "rojo, rojito" - red, very red - Mr Ortega chose pastel pink. His rallies played the anthem Give Peace a Chance, completing a 20-year trajectory from Lenin to Lennon.

The Nicaraguan president promised to walk a tightrope between promoting good relations with Washington while accepting cheap loans and other aid from Mr Chavez, whose economy is awash with revenue thanks to booming oil exports to the United States.

The result: a self-described communist and US foe funding an ideological turncoat with American dollars. Shame Einstein did not formulate a theory of irony.