The irruption of another Chamorro rekindles Ortega’s worst nightmare: the eventual exit from power

As if it was a already seen, the double surname Chamorro Barrios erupted like a hurricane in Nicaragua, which will hold presidential elections at the end of the year. Statements in defense of his family and in favor of democratic change Cristiana, daughter of former president Violeta Barriosnot only rocked the Sandinista regime, they also raised expectations around a presidential candidacy when the Nicaraguan opposition seeks what today seems an impossible unity.

“We don’t hand over people’s property to families who thought they owned the country. Throughout history, believing themselves to be superior, they have sold the country. Never again, neither hatred nor sale of the country ”, reacted virulently the vice-president Rosario Murillo, the wife of the president Daniel Ortega.

The mere mention of these names makes the Ortega clan pale, composed of the presidential couple and their nine children, owners of a media empire that works tirelessly for the family cause. There are many reasons, starting with the fact that Violeta Barrios, head of the National Opposition Union (UN), surprised the world by imposing in 1990 President Ortega at the time against all odds. The widow of journalist Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, assassinated by the Somoza dictatorship, has thus become the first woman president in Latin America and a true democratic benchmark.

Cristiana, founder of the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation and vice-president of the newspaper La Prensa, formalized a few days ago that she planned to face the Sandinista candidate in the presidential elections in November, either Ortega again, or, if he gives in, Murillo. The president reappeared yesterday after his longest absence: 40 days without appearing in public.

“I said yes in Nicaragua, I am ready to serve. I work to seek consensus among the political forces. We will see how this unity will end, which I am sure we will achieve, ”said CNN who today appears as the great candidate to defeat the ruling party.

The journalist went a step further by confronting the presidential couple, questioning the Sandinista regime through an opinion column in her own newspaper for the “insults” they waged against her family, including “outrage” against the ‘administration. Marked by Violeta Chamorro.

The “Mother of Nicaraguan Democracy”, 91, suffered a stroke in 2018 and is in a delicate state of health. “Murillo, with his curses, abuses his silence and takes advantage of the fact that he is not able to defend himself. He is tormented by the fact that my mother, with her moral authority and with the majority of Nicaraguans, ended the war, ”added the journalist.

In the article, in addition, Cristiana challenges the presidential couple to a debate: “Both against this citizen to defend the dignity of my mother and the legacy of Pedro Joaquín Chamorro. I urge you to show your face with great openness to the press, official and independent, national and international, and let the citizens judge who is telling the truth and who is lying ”.

The challenge has fallen like a bomb within the Sandinista power, which controls the media as if it were a matter of state. But it also shook the ranks of the opposition and sparked a backlash from former political prisoner Amaya Copens, a student who led the 2018 popular rebellion against government abuse.

“Instead of asking for debates with the dictatorship, which we know will not take place; Instead of advertising, demand freedom. If your priorities do not coincide with ours, we remind you: life, freedom and justice come before your personal campaigns ”, underlined the young woman, who has become a symbol in the fight against the revolutionary regime.

The Nicaraguan opposition is today divided into two large blocs: the National Coalition, with Blue and White national unity as the main actor, and the Civic Alliance, made up of businessmen, students and the liberal group Ciudadanos por la Libertad. There are still no serious approaches between the two blocs, but ideological and personal differences have been expressed.

“Cristiana’s appearance on the pre-election scene moved the presidential couple, hence Murillo’s furious reaction. There is a feeling among the population that unity is essential to confront Ortega, even Cristiana has said that she would accept to be a candidate of the whole united opposition, not of a divided opposition ”, she explains. . THE NATION retired general Hugo Torres, dissident of Sandinism.

Five of the strongest opposition candidates signed last week a document by which they agree to measure themselves against each other, through surveys or other mechanisms, to reach a single candidate. They are journalist Miguel Mora (a former political prisoner, whose news channel has been expropriated by the government), peasant leader Medardo Mairena (also former political prisoner), activist Félix Maradiaga, economist Juan Sebastián Chamorro and Luis Fley, candidate of the Nicaraguan Democratic Party of Fuerza.

Sandinism has erected an “electoral wall” to stay in power. Not only does it have media hegemony including “Gag Law”; it also restricted the political activity of the opposition and filled the prisons with 121 political prisoners, in addition to forcing the exile of more than 100,000 Nicaraguans.

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