| First Lady of Nicaragua | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Residence | Casa Naranja |
| Inaugural holder | Mercedes Avilés |
| Formation | April 30, 1865 |
The First Lady of Nicaragua (Spanish: Primera dama de Nicaragua) is the title attributed to the wife of the President of Nicaragua, or their chosen designee, such as a daughter or other relative. [1] The current incumbent first lady is Rosario Murillo, wife of President Daniel Ortega, who controversially became Vice President of Nicaragua under Ortega in January 2017. [2]
The daughters of several presidents have assumed the role of first lady or acting first lady in recent decades. [1] [3] From 1990 until 1997, the government of President Violeta Chamorro, Nicaragua's first female president, designated her daughter, Cristiana Chamorro Barrios, in the role of first lady. [1] [3] Violeta Chamorro's husband, Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, had been murdered in 1978 before she became president. [4]
Likewise, former President Arnoldo Alemán was a widower and unmarried when he was inaugurated in January 1997. His daughter, María Dolores Alemán Cardinel, served as First Lady of Nicaragua from January 1997 until October 1999 under her father. [1] [3] In October 1999, President Alemán married María Fernanda Flores Lanzas, who assumed the role of first lady. [1] [3]
The incumbent first lady is Rosario Murillo, wife of President Daniel Ortega, who was held the position since 2007. Murillo had previously served as first lady during the 1980s as Ortega's domestic partner in a common-law marriage. [5] [6] The couple later officially married in 2005. [2] During the 2016 Nicaraguan general election, President Ortega controversially selected his wife as his running mate for Vice President of Nicaragua, the second highest political position in Nicaragua. [2] [7] Murillo became Vice President in January 2017, simultaneously serving as first lady. She is "widely seen as the power behind the presidency" according to Lucia Newman, a journalist with Al Jazeera English and a veteran journalist on Latin America. [8] In 2021, Ortega, who was seeking a fourth consecutive term, and Murillo were re-elected during an election marred by the arrest and detention of numerous political opponents of the Ortega government, including Cristiana Chamorro Barrios, the first lady from 1990 to 1997, and María Fernanda Flores Lanzas, the former first lady from 1999 to 2002. [4] [9] Murillo was sanctioned by the European Union for human rights violations and undermining Nicaraguan democracy during the election, while the Biden administration banned Murillo and other officials from entering the United States. [10] [11]
| Portrait | Name | Term began | Term ended | President of Nicaragua | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Salvadora Debayle | May 7, 1950 | September 29, 1956 | Anastasio Somoza García | Second tenure as first lady during the Somoza dictatorship. Anastasio Somoza was assassinated on September 29, 1956. | |
| Isabel Urcuyo | September 29, 1956 | May 1, 1963 | Luis Somoza Debayle | Urcuyo was a Costa Rican-born diplomat. | |
| Carmen Reñazco | May 1, 1963 | August 3, 1966 | René Schick | Reñazco had married Schick on March 16, 1937. President Schick died in office in August 1966. | |
| ? | August 3, 1966 | August 4, 1966 | Orlando Montenegro Medrano | ||
| Sara Mora de Guerrero | August 4, 1966 | May 1, 1967 | Lorenzo Guerrero | ||
 | Hope Portocarrero | May 1, 1967 | May 1, 1972 | Anastasio Somoza Debayle | Portocarrero, an American, was born in Tampa, Florida, and married Somoza in 1950. [12] First tenure as first lady. |
| Vacant | May 1, 1972 | December 1, 1974 | Liberal-Conservative Junta | Liberal-Conservative Junta, though power rested with the Anastasio Somoza Debayle dictatorship. | |
| | Hope Portocarrero | December 1, 1974 | July 17, 1979 | Anastasio Somoza Debayle | Second tenure as first lady during the Somoza dictatorship. Portocarrero separated from Somoza during this time, but never divorced. President Anastasio Somoza was overthrown in 1979 during the Nicaraguan Revolution. She remarried after her husband's assassination and died in 1991 as Hope Somoza Baldocchi. [12] |
| Maria Luisa Muñoz | July 17, 1979 | July 18, 1979 | Francisco Urcuyo | Acting president | |
| Position vacant | July 18, 1979 | January 10, 1985 | Junta of National Reconstruction | Junta of National Reconstruction led by Daniel Ortega. | |
 | Rosario Murillo | January 10, 1985 | April 25, 1990 | Daniel Ortega | Murillo and Ortega had a common-law marriage, but were not married at the time. [5] [6] She became first lady upon Ortega's inauguration. [6] A poet, Murillo was also the director of the Institute of Culture during this time. [13] Ortega and Murillo later married in 2005. [2] |
 | Cristiana Chamorro Barrios | April 25, 1990 | January 10, 1997 | Violeta Chamorro | Violeta Chamorro, Nicaragua's first female president, was a widow. Her daughter, Cristiana Chamorro Barrios, served in the role of first lady during her presidency. [1] [3] [4] |
| María Dolores Alemán Cardinel | January 10, 1997 | October 23, 1999 | Arnoldo Alemán | President Alemán was a widower and unmarried from 1997 until 1999. His daughter, María Dolores Alemán Cardinel, served as first lady until his marriage in October 1999. [1] [3] | |
 | María Fernanda Flores Lanzas | October 23, 1999 | January 10, 2002 | Arnoldo Alemán | María Fernanda Flores Lanzas married President Alemán on October 23, 1999 and assumed the role of first lady. [1] [3] |
| Lila T. Abaunza | January 10, 2002 | January 10, 2007 | Enrique Bolaños | ||
| | Rosario Murillo | January 10, 2007 | Incumbent | Daniel Ortega | First Lady since 2007, Murillo is a highly influential figure in Nicaraguan politics. In 2016, Daniel Ortega selected his wife as his running mate for Vice President of Nicaragua in a controversial move. She has simultaneously held the Vice Presidency since January 2017. [7] [8] [14] [15] |
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. As a part of this, his government adopted strong anti-abortion policies, and his rhetoric took on a new, strongly religious tenor.
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Rafael Solís Cerda is a Nicaraguan attorney, politician and former Justice of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) of Nicaragua. He served on the Supreme Court for 19 years before resigning in January 2019. Before joining the Supreme Court, Solís had served in the Nicaraguan legislature and as a military leader.
Violeta Mercedes Granera Padilla is a Nicaraguan sociologist, activist and former candidate for Vice-President. Granera worked for the World Bank, then in government before joining the civic organization Movement for Nicaragua, where she worked for seven years advocating for transparency and election reform. She resigned to run for vice-president in 2016 with the Independent Liberal Party, but the party was barred from the ballot by court decision. In the wake of the 2018 anti-government protests she became involved in the Blue and White National Unity opposition group, and in the run-up to the 2021 Nicaraguan general election, she was among the opposition leaders arrested.
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.
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The following lists events in the year 2021 in Nicaragua.
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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.
Alba Luz Ramos Vanegas is a Nicaraguan lawyer and judge. A member of the Sandinista National Liberation Front since the 1970s, she began her career as a civil servant in the 1980s and joined the Supreme Court of Justice as a magistrate in 1988. She became the body’s president in 2002–2003, and resumed the position in 2010. She has held it continuously since then.
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.
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.
