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Daniel Ortega

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José Daniel Ortega Saavedra (born 11 November 1945) is the current President of Nicaragua. For much of his life, he has been an important leader in the Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional or FSLN).

After a popular rebellion resulted in the overthrow and exile of Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1979, Ortega became a member of the ruling multipartisan junta and was later elected president, serving from 1985 to 1990. His first period in office was characterized by socialist policies, internal dissent, hostility from the United States, and armed rebellion by U.S.-backed Contras.

Ortega was defeated by Violeta Barrios de Chamorro in the 1990 presidential election, but he remained an important figure in Nicaraguan opposition politics. He was an unsuccessful candidate for president in 1996 and 2001 before winning the 2006 presidential election.

Personal life

Early years

Ortega was born to a middle-class family in La Libertad, department of Chontales, Nicaragua. His parents, Daniel Ortega and Lidia Saavedra, were in opposition to the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. His mother was imprisoned by the Somoza's National Guard for being in possession of love letters which the police insisted were coded political missives. He has two brothers, Humberto Ortega, former General, military leader and published writer, and Camilo Ortega, who died during combat in 1978. Ortega was arrested for political activities at the early age of 15. In 1963, he attended the Universidad Centroamericana in Managua, where he studied law, and quickly joined the then-underground FSLN. Ortega was imprisoned in 1967 for taking part in robbing a branch of the Bank of America brandishing a machine gun, so the revolution could arm itself, but was released in late 1974 along with other Sandinista prisoners in exchange for Somocista hostages. While he was imprisoned at the El Modelo jail, just outside of Managua, he wrote poems, one of which he titled "I Never Saw Managua When Miniskirts Were in Fashion".

After his release, Ortega was exiled to Cuba, where he received several months of guerrilla training. He later returned to Nicaragua secretly. Ortega married Rosario Murillo in 1978 but remarried her in 2005 to have the marriage recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. The couple has eight children. She is currently the government's spokeswoman, government minister, among other positions..

The Sandinista revolution (1979-1990)

For more details on Ortega’s past presidency, see Sandinista National Liberation Front.

When Somoza was overthrown by the FSLN in July 1979, Ortega became a member of the five-person Junta of National Reconstruction, which also included Sandinista militant Moisés Hassan, novelist Sergio Ramírez Mercado, businessman Alfonso Robelo Callejas, and Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, the widow of a martyred journalist. The FSLN came to dominate the junta, Robelo and Chamorro resigned, and Ortega became the de facto ruler of the country.

In 1981, U.S. President Ronald Reagan condemned the FSLN for joining with Soviet-backed Cuba in supporting Marxist revolutionary movements in other Latin American countries such as El Salvador. The Reagan Administration authorized the CIA to begin financing, arming and training rebels, some of whom were former officers from Somoza's National Guard, as anti-Sandinista guerrillas. These were known collectively as the Contras. This also led to one of the largest political scandals in US history, (Iran-Gate or the Iran Contra Affair), when Oliver North and several members of the Reagan Administration defied the Boland Amendment, and going against the US Congress, helped sell arms to Iran, using the proceeds to fund the Contras. Between 1980 and 1989, over 30,000 Nicaraguans died in the conflict between the Sandinista government and the Contras.

In November 1984, Ortega called national elections; he won the presidency with 63% of the vote and took office on January 10, 1985. According to the vast majority of independent observers, the 1984 elections were perhaps the freest and fairest in Nicaraguan history. A report by an Irish parliamentary delegation stated: "The electoral process was carried out with total integrity. The seven parties participating in the elections represented a broad spectrum of political ideologies." The general counsel of New York's Human Rights Commission described the election as "free, fair and hotly contested." A study by the U.S. Latin American Studies Association (LASA) concluded that the FSLN (Sandinista Front) "did little more to take advantage of its incumbency than incumbent parties everywhere (including the U.S.) routinely do."

Thirty-three percent of the Nicaraguan voters cast ballots for one of six opposition parties – three to the right of the Sandinistas, three to the left – which had campaigned with the aid of government funds and free TV and radio time. Two conservative parties captured a combined 23 percent of the vote. They held rallies across the country (a few of which were disrupted by FSLN supporters) and blasted the Sandinistas in terms far harsher than Walter Mondale's 1984 critiques of incumbent U.S. President Reagan. Most foreign and independent observers noted this pluralism in debunking the Reagan administration charge – prominent in the U.S. press – that it was a "Soviet-style sham" election. Some opposition parties boycotted it, under pressure from U.S. embassy officials, and it was denounced as being unfair by the Reagan administration. Reagan thus maintained that he was justified to continue supporting the Contras' "democratic resistance".

Interim years

In the 1990 presidential election, Ortega lost to Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, his former colleague in the junta. Chamorro was supported by a 14-party anti-Sandinista alliance known as the National Opposition Union (Unión Nacional Opositora, UNO), an alliance that ranged from conservatives and liberals to communists. Contrary to what most observers expected, Chamorro shocked Ortega and won the election. In Ortega's concession speech the following day he vowed to keep "ruling from below" a reference to the power that the FSLN still wielded in various sectors. He was also quoted saying:

Ortega ran for election again, in October 1996 and November 2001, but lost on both occasions to Arnoldo Alemán and Enrique Bolaños, respectively. In these elections, a key issue was the allegation of corruption. In Ortega’s last days as president, through a series of legislative acts known as “The Piñata”, estates that had been seized by the Sandinista government (some valued at millions and even billions US$) became the private property of various FSLN officials, including Ortega himself.

Ortega's policies became more moderate during his time in opposition, and he gradually reduced much of his former Marxist rhetoric in favor of an agenda of more moderate democratic socialism. His Roman Catholic faith has become more intense in recent years as well, leading Ortega to embrace a variety of socially conservative policies; in 2006 the FSLN endorsed a strict law banning all abortions in Nicaragua.

In 1998, Daniel Ortega's stepdaughter Zoilamérica Narváez released a 48-page report describing her allegations that Ortega had systematically sexually abused her for 9 years beginning when she was 11. The case could not proceed in Nicaraguan courts because Ortega had immunity from prosecution as a member of parliament, and the five-year statute of limitations for sexual abuse and rape charges was judged to have been exceeded. Narváez's complaint was heard by the Inter American Human Rights Commission on March 4, 2002.

In 2006, Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, expressed concern that election of Ortega, described as having "highly substantiated" charges of sexual abuse raised against him, to the Presidency of Nicaragua, could undermine worldwide NGO efforts against child abuse and sexual violence.

Current activities

FSLN-PLC Alliance in the National Assembly

Ortega was instrumental in creating the controversial strategic pact between the FSLN and the Constitutional Liberal Party (Partido Liberal Constitucionalista, PLC).

The controversial alliance of Nicaragua's two major parties aimed at distributing the powers between the PLC and FSLN, and preventing other parties from rising. "El Pacto," as it is known in Nicaragua, is said to have personally benefited former presidents Ortega and Alemán greatly, while constraining then president Enrique Bolaños. One of the key accords of the pact was to lower the percentage necessary to win a presidential election in the first round from 45% to 35%, a change in electoral law that would become decisive in Ortega's favor in the 2006 elections.

2006 Presidential Election

The 2006 Nicaraguan presidential election was held on November 5 2006. FSLN presidential candidate Ortega was the victor in the November elections, having attained 37.99% of the votes cast. The Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance (ALN) gained 28.30%, the Liberal Constitutional Party (PLC) won 27.11%, the Movement for Sandinista renewal (MRS) 6.29% and the Alternative for Change (AC) 0.29%. The FSLN were the party out in force to celebrate a victory the night after the election took place on November 6. Following his election, Ortega was congratulated by Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, and Fidel Castro, former president of Cuba..

Herty Lewites – who was also running for president prior to his death in July 2006 – suggested that Ortega's pact with Alemán had given Ortega de facto control of the bodies responsible for administering the election, and thus that Ortega would most likely have been the winner. Under the old law, Ortega would have gone to a second round against Eduardo Montealegre (he would have needed 45% instead of 35%.) International observers, including the Carter Center, judged the election to be free and fair. Ortega was congratulated by telephone by Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, who chanted "long live the Sandinista revolution!" The White House confirmed on January 8, 2007 that U.S. President Bush also had called Ortega to congratulate him on his election victory.

Ortega's second presidency

While supporting abortion rights during his presidency during the 1980s, Ortega has since embraced the Catholic church's position of strong opposition. While non-emergency abortions have long been illegal in Nicaragua, recently even abortions "in the case where the pregnancy endangers the mother’s life" have been made illegal in the days before the election, with a 6 years prison term in such cases too -- a move supported by Ortega.

In his first week as President of Nicaragua, Ortega met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The two heads of state toured shantytowns in Managua. Ortega told the press that the "revolutions of Iran and Nicaragua are almost twin revolutions...since both revolutions are about justice, liberty, self-determination, and the struggle against imperialism.

As of June 2007, a CID-Gallup survey published in the Managua daily La Prensa found that Ortega's approval level had dropped significantly, 26% of Nicaraguans having a positive image of his handling of the job, 36% a negative impression, and the remaining a neutral impression. The poll also indicated that 54% were still optimistic about Ortega and the government, in particular the health and education policies. Additionally, 57% of Nicaraguans believed the country is on the "wrong track", and only 31% believed that the country is on the "right track". CID-Gallup surveyed 1,258 people throughout the country and had a margin of error of more or less 2.5%.

On March 6, 2008, following the 2008 Andean diplomatic crisis, Ortega announced that Nicaragua was breaking diplomatic ties with Colombia "in solidarity with the Ecuadoran people". Ortega also stated, "We are not breaking relations with the Colombian people. We are breaking relations with the terrorist policy practiced by Alvaro Uribe's government". The relations were restored with the resolution at a Rio Group summit held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on March 7, 2008. At the summit Colombia's Álvaro Uribe, Ecuador's Rafael Correa, Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Ortega publicly shook hands in a show of good will. The handshakes, broadcast live throughout Latin America, appeared to be a signal that a week of military buildups and diplomatic repercussions was over. After the handshakes, Ortega said he would re-establish diplomatic ties with Colombia.

References

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