José Daniel Ortega Saavedra is a Nicaraguan politician who has served as the 58th president of Nicaragua since 2007. Previously he was leader of Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, first as Coordinator of the Junta of National Reconstruction from 1979 to 1985, and then as the 54th President from 1985 to 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 North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region is one of two autonomous regions in Nicaragua. It was created along with the South Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region by the Autonomy Statute of 7 September 1987 through a division of the former Zelaya Department. It covers an area of 33,106 km2 and has a population of 541,189. It is the largest autonomous region or department in Nicaragua. The capital is Puerto Cabezas. It contains part of the region known as the Mosquito Coast.
The Republic of Nicaragua elects on the national level a head of state—the president—and a unicameral legislature. The president of Nicaragua and his or her vice-president are elected on one ballot for a five-year term by the people.
Popular Action Movement - Marxist–Leninist is a Hoxhaist communist party in Nicaragua that surged out of a split from the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in the early 1970s. Since 1985 it is officially named the Marxist–Leninist Party of Nicaragua, but the original name MAP-ML is far more known and has been used when participating in elections.
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.
General elections were held in Nicaragua on 5 November 2006. The country's voters went to the polls to elect a new President of the Republic and 90 members of the National Assembly. Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FLSN) was elected president with 38% of the vote, defeating Eduardo Montealegre with 28%, José Rizo with 27%, Edmundo Jarquín with 6%, and Edén Pastora with 0.3%. The FLSN also emerged as the largest party in the National Assembly, winning 38 seats.
The Sandinista Renovation Movement is a Nicaraguan political party founded on 21 May 1995. It defines itself as a democratic and progressive party, made of people of all genders, that promotes the construction of a Nicaragua with opportunities, progress, solidarity, democracy, and sovereignty.
Yapti Tasba Masraka Nanih Aslatakanka is an indigenous party mainly active on Nicaragua's Atlantic coast. YATAMA has its roots in the MISURASATA and the MISURA/KISAN organisations. In 1988, in response to the Central American peace accords, the remnants of MISURASATA and MISURA/KISAN in Honduras, Costa Rica and Miami reorganized as YATAMA, united by the traditional Miskitu leaders Steadman Fagoth and Brooklyn Rivera.
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.
General elections were held in Nicaragua on 6 November 2011. The incumbent president Daniel Ortega, won a third term in this election, with a landslide victory.
Miriam Argüello Morales was a politician from Nicaragua. A lawyer by training, she was the first woman to become president of the National Assembly of Nicaragua, where she served as a deputy for 22 years. She was elected Assembly president in 1990, defeating Alfredo César Aguirre though he had the support of Nicaraguan President Violeta Chamorro. However, César prevailed the following year, replacing Argüello in 1991.
Lumberto Ignacio Campbell is a Nicaraguan Sandinista politician. Campbell was born in Bluefields, Nicaragua and was the only Creole guerilla commander in the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), known by the nom de guerre "El Negro". In the 1980s he served as Vice-Minister for the Atlantic Coast. In 2014, the National Assembly named him to the Supreme Electoral Council, where he replaced Emmett Lang as vice-president.
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.
Carlos Tünnerman Bernheim was a Nicaraguan lawyer, diplomat, government official and educator. He was a Minister of Education in Nicaragua, serving during the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) government from 1979 to 1984. He next became Nicaragua’s ambassador to the United States and then to the Organization of American States (OAS), from 1984 to 1988.
General elections were held in Nicaragua on 7 November 2021 to elect the President, the National Assembly and members of the Central American Parliament.
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.
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.
Suyén Barahona Cuan is a Nicaraguan activist. She is president of the Democratic Renewal Union party (Unamos), an opposition group that is the successor to the Sandinista Renovation Movement. She is also a member of the Blue and White National Unity opposition group that formed following the outbreak of anti-government protests in April 2018. In June 2021, she was arrested alongside other opposition figures and pre-candidates for president in the 2021 Nicaraguan general election.
Medardo Mairena Sequeira is a Nicaraguan farmer and coordinator of the peasant (campesino) movement. Mairena has worked in the peasant anti-canal movement since 2013 and has been an active opposition leader since the national protests broke out in late April 2018, participating in the National Dialogue between protestors and the government of Daniel Ortega, mediated by the Catholic Church. Two months later he became one of a large number of dissidents arrested and prosecuted for terrorism; Mairena was sentenced to 261 years in prison, serving one year before he was released under a negotiated Amnesty Law.
