Ortega, << awr TAY gah, >> Daniel (1945-…), became president of Nicaragua in 2007. He belongs to the Sandinista National Liberation Front, a leftist political party that formerly was a revolutionary guerrilla movement.
Daniel José Ortega Saavedra was born on Nov. 11, 1945, in the town of La Libertad. In the 1960’s, he became a leader in the Sandinista opposition to the government of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The government imprisoned Ortega from 1967 to 1974. In 1979, the Sandinistas overthrew Somoza’s government. Ortega was named leader of the new revolutionary government and was elected president of Nicaragua in 1984.
During the 1980’s, Ortega’s government improved health care in rural areas, built many new schools, and reduced illiteracy. It also took control of many businesses, increased press censorship, and restricted the civil rights of its political opponents. Critics of Ortega, including the United States government, charged that he and the Sandinistas had set up a Communist dictatorship. In 1981, Nicaraguans known as contras began a guerrilla war against Ortega’s government. In 1988, Ortega helped negotiate a cease-fire between his government and the contras.
Nicaragua’s relationship with the United States greatly influenced Ortega’s national leadership during the 1980’s. The United States had been Nicaragua’s chief trading partner and had supported the dictatorship of the Somoza family. After the Sandinista party came to power, the United States sharply reduced trade with Nicaragua and provided funds to the contras. Ortega and his party struggled to improve an economy crippled by the U.S. trade cuts, by the war against the contras, and by high government spending for health and education programs.
Ortega was defeated in presidential elections in 1990, 1996, and 2001. He finally was reelected in 2006 and took office in 2007. Despite constitutional limitations on presidential terms, Ortega ran again for the presidency in 2011 and won. In 2014, Nicaragua’s legislature amended the Constitution to eliminate presidential term limits. Ortega then was reelected in 2016 and 2021. Before the 2021 election, Ortega’s government arrested and detained several other presidential candidates and many of its critics and opponents. Such repressive actions drew condemnation and concern from many Nicaraguans and from democratic governments abroad.
