MANAGUA -- His childhood ambition to be a poet was sidetracked by his careers as a guerrilla leader and politician, but Daniel Ortega retains a keen artist's eye for symbolism, especially when it comes to crafting his image as a people's president.

When foreign leaders arrive here on state visits, Ortega picks them up not in a chauffeured limousine but a Mercedes-Benz SUV that he drives himself.

But intentionally or not, the symbolism turns even more potent when the guest is Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. When that happens, Ortega gives him the car keys and Chávez gets behind the wheel.

Many Nicaraguans believe that's not the only time Chávez is in the driver's seat in their country. ''Ortega mentions Hugo Chávez more than I say the Hail Mary, and that's my favorite prayer,'' says businessman Adolfo Calero, a former congressman from the opposition Conservative Party. ``It's like Chávez is his father.''

No wonder. Since his fellow leftist Ortega returned from nearly two decades in political limbo to assume the presidency last year, Chávez has promised Nicaragua billions of dollars in aid -- including things as varied as enough half-price oil to run the country's economy for a year and a refinery to process it, and briefcases for teachers and pencils for their students.

The cascade of gifts -- part of Chávez's campaign to forge a coalition of left-wing Latin American governments as a counterweight to U.S. influence in the region -- has won him praise in some quarters and sounded alarm bells in others. A T-shirt popular with both admirers and detractors features a photo of Chávez and Ortega flanking Fidel Castro under the words, ``The Latin American Trinity.''

Nicaragua is just one recipient of aid that Chávez has showered on potential allies throughout the hemisphere (including heating oil for poverty-stricken households in the United States), bolstering his standing as the leader of the Latin American left and winning him both friends and enemies in large numbers.

He has lavished more money and attention on other countries, but it has triggered a bitter reaction in Nicaragua, where the United States spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the 1980s to stymie Ortega and his Sandinista party's Marxist bent.

ROOTS OF SKEPTICISM

Chávez's largess has now allowed Ortega and the Sandinistas to push their new government steadily leftward even though they control only a third of the Nicaraguan congress. And it has also raised hopes -- or fears -- that the Central American left, battered on the battlefield in the 1980s and at the ballot box since then, may be on the verge of a comeback. Parties built from former Marxist guerrilla movements now hold the presidency in Nicaragua and Guatemala and are considered a good bet in next year's elections in El Salvador.

But Chávez's aid has also prompted questions about the transparency of Ortega's government and its use of state funds, as well as a backlash among Nicaraguans who believe the Venezuelan president is seeking influence with promises that he can't possibly fulfill.

''Supposedly, Chávez is giving us help,'' said Angela Sanchez, a 19-year-old housewife in a Managua neighborhood that renamed itself Barrio Hugo Chávez in the hope -- thus far in vain -- of being rewarded with Venezuelan aid. ``That's why I supported the Sandinistas in the election, because we thought they would get us help from Venezuela. But now I haven't seen any results.''

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