Cristiana Chamorro Barrios | |
---|---|
![]() Chamorro in 2021 | |
First Lady of Nicaragua | |
In office April 25, 1990 –January 10, 1997 | |
President | Violeta Chamorro |
Preceded by | Rosario Murillo |
Succeeded by | María Dolores Alemán Cardinel |
Personal details | |
Born | c. 1954 (age 69–70) Managua |
Spouse | Antonio Lacayo |
Parents |
|
Relatives | Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Barrios (brother), Carlos F. Chamorro (brother), Claudia Chamorro Barrios (sister) |
Occupation | Journalist |
Cristiana Chamorro Barrios (born February 25, 1954) [1] 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.
Chamorro is the daughter of newspaper editor Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, who was assassinated in 1978, and Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who became president of Nicaragua in 1990. Cristiana began working at La Prensa following her father's death and served as its editor from 1987 to 1991. She also served in the role of First Lady of Nicaragua during her mother's presidency. [2] [3] [4] She later became director of a press freedom foundation honoring her mother, the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation, until new legal restrictions on civic organizations in Nicaragua forced the closure of the foundation in 2021.
Chamorro is the daughter of assassinated newspaper editor Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal and former Nicaraguan president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. Her father, a critic of the Somoza regime, was murdered in 1978, turning the tide of support against the dictatorship which fell to the Sandinista National Liberation Front the following year. Cristiana joined her mother in working at his paper, La Prensa , and by 35 was editor of the paper. [5] She served in the role from January 1987 to April 1991. [6]
She supported her mother's 1989 campaign for the presidency, [5] but once her mother took office (having defeated incumbent Sandinista Daniel Ortega), the paper, historically an opposition outlet (opposing both the Somoza regime and, eventually, the Sandinistas that had overthrown the dictatorship), came to be seen as a government mouthpiece. [7] Readership declined and by the winter of 1990 Violeta decided to cede her role as publisher and give her shares in the paper to Cristiana. [7] However her late father's relatives, who controlled 60 percent of the paper, were unhappy about this and tried to force out Cristiana for political reasons; her husband Antonio Lacayo was a major figure in her mother's administration and more friendly to the just-defeated Sandinista National Liberation Front than the other side of the family wanted, and they felt the paper had followed this tendency. [7] As a compromise Cristiana Chamorro became chair of the board and anti-FSLN editor Horacio Ruiz became executive editor. [7] Their relationship became acrimonious to the point of no longer speaking, and Chamorro's brother Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Barrios soon replaced Ruiz, although she also had disagreements with her brother, who had been a Contra. [7]
As of 2021, Chamorro is vice-president of the paper, Nicaragua's largest. [8]
Chamorro also became director of the press freedom foundation in her mother's name, the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation (FVBdC). She served in this capacity until January 2021, [9] and in February 2021 the Foundation ceased operations after the Ortega government, which had returned to power in 2007, announced a new law that all groups receiving funding from outside Nicaragua would be required to register as foreign agents. Rather than accept foreign status, the Foundation shut down. [10]
Prior to being put under house arrest, Chamorro was a pre-candidate for president of Nicaragua, supporting a unified opposition ticket to challenge incumbent Daniel Ortega, who was running for a fifth term. In May, the Ortega regime opened an investigation into Chamorro's work at the Foundation, alleging money laundering, [8] which threatened to disqualify her candidacy as people under investigation are barred from running. [11] This followed on Nicaragua's Supreme Electoral Council's revocation of the legal status of opposition party the Democratic Restoration Party (PRD). [11] The day Chamorro was called in for questioning, the police also raided the news offices of her brother Carlos's media channel, Confidencial, confiscating equipment and arresting a cameraman. [11] Chamorro subsequently announced she would join the primary, alongside seven other candidates, for the Citizens for Freedom (CxL) party, the only remaining opposition party legally qualified to field a candidate in the November 2021 election. [12] The Ortega government then announced she was disqualified from running and on 2 June raided her house and detained her 15 minutes before she was scheduled to give a press conference. [9] The Secretary General for the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, criticized the arrest, issuing a statement saying: "Actions like this remove all political credibility from the government and the organizers of the electoral process." [13] Chamorro has been held under house arrest since she was first detained and has not been allowed to meet with her lawyer. [6]
Chamorro was married to Antonio Lacayo, [14] from 1978 [15] until his death in a helicopter crash in 2015. [16]
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.
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, as of 2024, 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.
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Carlos Fernando Chamorro Barrios is a Nicaraguan independent investigative journalist. He is the founder and editor of Confidencial, a news website and weekly publication combining investigative journalism and analyses of current affairs. He also hosts two television news shows, Tonight and This Week. Chamorro is the youngest son of former president of Nicaragua Violeta Barrios de Chamorro and Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, a Nicaraguan journalist and editor of La Prensa who was shot to death in January 1978 during the Somoza regime.
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.
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Juan Sebastián Chamorro García is a Nicaraguan economist, businessman and politician. He was a pre-candidate for president in the 2021 Nicaraguan general election until he was detained in a wave of arrests of opposition candidates and other civic leaders.
Antonio Lacayo Oyanguren was a Nicaraguan politician who served as Minister of the Presidency from 1990 to 1996, during the government of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. He was a central figure in the country’s transition to democracy. He was campaign manager for Chamorro’s 1990 run for the presidency that defeated FSLN incumbent Daniel Ortega. In 1991, he created the Cordoba Oro.
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.
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.
Ana Margarita Vijil Gurdián is a Nicaraguan lawyer, political leader and human rights activist. She is former president, from 2012 to 2017, of the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) and a member of the Unamos party that succeeded the MRS. In June 2021, she was part of a wave of arrests of opposition figures, 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.
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