José Daniel Ortega Saavedra is a Nicaraguan politician who has been President of Nicaragua since 2007. Previously he was leader of Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, first as coordinator (1979–1985) of the Junta of National Reconstruction, and then as President of Nicaragua (1985–1990). During his first term, he implemented policies to achieve leftist reforms across Nicaragua. In later years, Ortega's left-wing radical politics cooled significantly, leading him to pursue pro-business policies and even rapprochement with the Catholic Church. However, in 2022, Ortega resumed repression of the Church, and has imprisoned prelate Rolando José Álvarez Lagos.
The Sandinista National Liberation Front is a left-wing political party in Nicaragua. Its members are called Sandinistas in both English and Spanish. The party is named after Augusto César Sandino, who led the Nicaraguan resistance against the United States occupation of Nicaragua in the 1930s.
Violeta Barrios Torres de Chamorro is a Nicaraguan former politician who served as President of Nicaragua from 1990 to 1997. She was the first and, to date, only woman to hold the position of president of Nicaragua.
Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal was a Nicaraguan journalist and publisher. He was the editor of La Prensa, the only significant opposition newspaper to the long rule of the Somoza family. He is a 1977 laureate of the Maria Moors Cabot Prize of Columbia University in New York. He married Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who later went on to become President of Nicaragua (1990–1997). In 1978, he was shot to death, one of the precipitating events of the overthrow of the Somoza regime the following year.
La Prensa is a Nicaraguan newspaper, with offices in the capital Managua. Its current daily circulation is placed at 42,000. Founded in 1926, in 1932 it was bought by Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Zelaya, who had become editor-in-chief. He promoted the Conservative Party of Nicaragua and became a voice of opposition to Juan Bautista Sacasa, for which the paper was censored. He continued to be critical of dictator Anastasio Somoza García, who came to power in a coup d'état.
The mass media in Nicaragua consist of several different types of communications media: television, radio, cinema, newspapers, magazines, and Internet-based Web sites.
General elections were held in Nicaragua on 25 February 1990 to elect the President and the members of the National Assembly. The result was a victory for the National Opposition Union (UNO), whose presidential candidate Violeta Chamorro surprisingly defeated incumbent president Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). This led to a historic peaceful and democratic transfer of power in Nicaragua.
Confidencial is a weekly newspaper in Nicaragua, with offices in the capital Managua. It was founded in 1996 by Carlos Fernando Chamorro Barrios. Chamorro is the former director of the Sandinista National Liberation Front newspaper Barricada and the son of Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, Nicaraguan journalist and former editor of La Prensa whose murder in the last year of the rule of the Somoza family influenced public sympathy for the FSLN rebels.
In 1979, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) overthrew Anastasio Somoza Debayle, ending the Somoza dynasty, and established a revolutionary government in Nicaragua. Following their seizure of power, the Sandinistas ruled the country first as part of a Junta of National Reconstruction. Following the resignation of centrist members from this Junta, the FSLN took exclusive power in March 1981.
Luis Fernando Carrión Cruz is Nicaraguan politician. He is a former guerilla and one of the nine commandantes of the Sandinista (FSLN) National Directorate that overthrew the Somoza regime in 1979. Born to a wealthy, politically-connected family, he began college in the United States but returned to Nicaragua, first joining a radical Catholic group then the FSLN. He led the Carlos Roberto Huembes Eastern Front in Chontales during the final offensive of the revolution. He was a government minister and member of the FSLN National Directorate until 1995 when he split with party and became a cofounder of the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS).
Claudia Lucía Chamorro Barrios is a Nicaraguan writer, public health official, and former ambassador of Nicaragua to Cuba and Costa Rica. She served as a diplomat on behalf of the Sandinista government in the 1980s. She later became a critic of the FSLN. She is the author of a memoir, Tiempo de Vivir.
Vilma Núñez de Escorcia is a Nicaraguan lawyer and human-rights activist. Born to a single mother, she developed an early concern for social justice. As an undergraduate studying law at National Autonomous University of Nicaragua in León, she met future senior government officials Carlos Tünnerman and Sergio Ramírez, and became one of the survivors of the 23 July 1959 student massacre by the Somoza National Guard. She joined the Sandinista National Liberation Front around 1975 and in 1979 was imprisoned and tortured by the Somoza regime. She was freed days before the FSLN insurrection succeeded on 19 July 1979. When they took power, she served as vice-president of the Supreme Court of Justice, then as director of the National Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.
Moisés Hassan Morales is a Nicaraguan politician. He was one of five members of the Junta of National Reconstruction that ruled the country from 1979 to 1984, following the fall of the Somozas regime.
Mariano Fiallos Oyanguren was a Nicaraguan judge and academic. He was rector of National Autonomous University of Nicaragua at León (UNAN-León) from 1974 to 1980 and President of the Supreme Electoral Council from 1984 to 1996, overseeing the country’s first democratic transfer of power in 1990.
Cristiana Chamorro Barrios is a Nicaraguan journalist, nonprofit executive and political candidate. Vice-president of La Prensa, she was an aspiring presidential candidate in the 2021 Nicaraguan general election until the Ortega government disqualified her from running and ordered her arrest in early June 2021.
José Adán Aguerri Chamorro, nicknamed Chanito, is a Nicaraguan economist and civic leader. He is the former president of Nicaraguan business chamber, the Superior Council for Private Enterprise (COSEP), where he worked closely with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega as a strong proponent of the "consensus model" that gave the business community a large degree of influence over economic policy in exchange for supporting Ortega. However, the consensus broke down over social security reforms and human rights abuses in April 2018 and Aguerri became a vocal critic of Ortega. Aguerri was arrested in June 2021 along with a number of other opposition leaders including six opposition pre-candidates seeking to challenge Ortega's reelection bid in the 2021 Nicaraguan general election.
Hugo Torres Jiménez was a Nicaraguan Sandinista guerrilla and military leader who was a brigadier general in the Nicaraguan Armed Forces. During the Sandinista National Liberation Front effort to overthrow the Somoza family regime, Torres was the only guerrilla who participated in both the 1974 Christmas party raid that freed future President Daniel Ortega among other prisoners, and the 1978 raid on the National Palace, freeing another 60 political prisoners. In the late 1990s he became a critic of Ortega, leaving the FSLN to join the Sandinista Renovation Movement and later its successor the Democratic Renewal Union, serving as vice-president of both parties. In June 2021 he was part of a wave of arrests of opposition figures by the Ortega administration. He died the following February.
Miguel de los Ángeles Mora Barberena is a Nicaraguan journalist and political candidate. With his wife Verónica Chávez, he founded cable news channel 100% Noticias. In June 2021, Mora was arrested in a wave of detentions of opposition figures and other civic leaders, including seven aspiring opposition candidates for president in the 2021 Nicaraguan general election.
Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Barrios is a Nicaraguan journalist and politician. He began his career in journalism working at La Prensa, following the 1978 assassination of its editor, his father, Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal. Working on the side of the Contras in exile in the 1980s, he returned to the country in 1989 when his mother Violeta Barrios de Chamorro ran for president, and following her election, served as a Nicaraguan ambassador. He later became defense minister. In the 21st century, Chamorro has been a city councilor for Managua and deputy in the National Assembly, also for Managua. On 25 June 2021, he became part of a wave of arrests of opposition and civic figures in Nicaragua.
Jaime Chamorro Cardenal was a Nicaraguan newspaper editor and publisher. A civil engineer by training, journalism was the family business, as his father owned the newspaper La Prensa. Chamorro joined La Prensa in 1974, where he worked for 47 years and served as publisher for 28, from 1993 until his death in 2021.
