When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

You've reached your limit of one free article.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime .

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Exclusive International news coverage

Ad-free experience NEW

Weekly digital Magazine NEW

9 daily & weekly Newsletters

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Free trial

30-days free access, then $2.90
per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
Nicaragua

Nicaragua's Ortega: From Egalitarian Ideals To Boundless Ambition

As President Daniel Ortega and his relatives continue to accumulate power in Nicaragua, they are becoming a close copy of the venal political dynasty Ortega fought to overthrow.

Daniel Ortega in January 2007
Daniel Ortega in January 2007

-Editorial-

BOGOTÁ — It is paradoxical, to say the least, that the former guerrilla chief who fought to topple a dictatorship in Nicaragua should now become a bit of a dictator himself. Critics are saying that Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega is gradually taking control of, well, everything in the country , much like the Somozas, members of the patrician family that ran Nicaragua practically as a fiefdom in the 1960s and 70s.

It seems there is a new dynasty in town, the Ortegas. Recently President Ortega announced that his running mate as vice-president in elections this November would be the first lady, Rosario Murillo. And while this violates the constitution, it will likely be legalized by the Supreme Court, which the president easily manipulates according to his every whim.

With a calculated strategy, in a country without the separation of powers, authorities have effectively removed any juridical and physical obstacles that might hinder the president, his wife and their children from settling firmly into power.

In early June, the Supreme Court sacked the leader of the opposition Independent Liberal Party (PLI), Eduardo Montealegre, as its legal head. In doing so, it also voided the party's chosen candidate for president, Luis Callejas, who dropped out of the race. The court then appointed Pedro Reyes, an obscure figure known principally for his close ties to Ortega, as the PLI's new leader; his first move in that role was to realign PLI's 28 parliamentarians with the government. They resisted, so Reyes asked the Electoral Court to sack them, which it did on July 29.

Thus the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), the president's party, appears to be the only one fielding a presidential candidate, and the only one with parliamentary representation.

The next step was for Ortega to put his wife forward for the vice-presidency, making her his putative successor. She had already been his right-hand woman, the country's chief minister or cabinet head, acting foreign minister and chief of protocol, and has just written a new history of Nicaragua. Nothing moves in Nicaragua without her consent.

Furthering this nepotism is the couple's oldest son, a presidential adviser on investments who negotiated a deal with a Chinese magnate to construct the country's controversial interoceanic canal. Another son is said to manage the ample funds received in aid from Venezuela, estimated to have surpassed $3.5 billion since 2007, while yet another son controls most of the media with his mother. To round out this tight-knit circle there are a lot of close collaborators and former guerrilla fighters in the new "Ortegan" oligarchy, which has amassed a fortune for itself.

Daniel Ortega Saavedra was president in the 1980s, lost the presidential elections in 1990 and then moved heaven and earth to return to the post. He made peace with the former Archbishop of Managua, Cardinal Obando y Bravo, a fierce opponent of his. The same with his archenemy Arnoldo Alemán, a corrupt right-wing politician and president from 1997 to 2002.

In 2007, Ortega became president once again, and he has tightened his grip on power ever since, becoming Nicaragua's strongman through elections many have qualified as fraudulent. None of this is at odds, apparently, with the Sandinista slogan "Nicaragua: Free, Blessed, Christian and Caring."

Certainly, the country has become one of the most stable in Central America, with minimal levels of violence compared to its neighbors. It is a country where business leaders have agreed not to meddle in politics as long as the government leaves them to their own devices. Yet most of the country's impoverished citizens live on handouts from various state agencies run by Ortega, his wife, the party nomenklatura and the so-called Base and Neighborhood Committees. Meanwhile, Ortega's eldest son is organizing a Puccini festival to kick-start his début as a tenor.

All this helps to explain why people with integrity, such as former vice-president Sergio Ramírez, journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro and other veteran militants of the Sandinista Front, decided years ago to split from their party and Ortega.

In the words of one former Sandinista commander, Dora María Téllez, "All Ortega has done since 2007 has been to accumulate power, all the power there is. The mistake is to think Ortega will stop. He has no limits ... In Nicaragua, dictatorships are not born of the military, but of families."

Events are proving her right.

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Future

Life On "Mars": With The Teams Simulating Space Missions Under A Dome

A niche research community plays out what existence might be like on, or en route to, another planet.

Photo of a person in a space suit walking toward the ​Mars Desert Research Station near Hanksville, Utah

At the Mars Desert Research Station near Hanksville, Utah

Sarah Scoles

In November 2022, Tara Sweeney’s plane landed on Thwaites Glacier, a 74,000-square-mile mass of frozen water in West Antarctica. She arrived with an international research team to study the glacier’s geology and ice fabric, and how its ice melt might contribute to sea level rise. But while near Earth’s southernmost point, Sweeney kept thinking about the moon.

“It felt every bit of what I think it will feel like being a space explorer,” said Sweeney, a former Air Force officer who’s now working on a doctorate in lunar geology at the University of Texas at El Paso. “You have all of these resources, and you get to be the one to go out and do the exploring and do the science. And that was really spectacular.”

That similarity is why space scientists study the physiology and psychology of people living in Antarctic and other remote outposts: For around 25 years, people have played out what existence might be like on, or en route to, another world. Polar explorers are, in a way, analogous to astronauts who land on alien planets. And while Sweeney wasn’t technically on an “analog astronaut” mission — her primary objective being the geological exploration of Earth — her days played out much the same as a space explorer’s might.

Keep reading...Show less

The latest