New Nicaragua...or same old?

Well, Nicaragua picked Daniel Ortega to be president again. I'm not sure if saying "again" is legit, cause his first election sure wasn't. That is not to say the most recent one wasn't. He definitely beat out a fractured Right in the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The future is uncertain, though. He has a checkered past. I wrote before on this blog that I think my parent's biases on the Sandinistas were sometimes just that, biases. They seemed closed to any of the positives that the Sandinistas brought to the country because of the negatives that came with it, not least of which (in their eyes) was a socialist system. Ortega had a rough first go in part due to the troubled circumstance that he began his rule: world recession and US support of the Contras. But reading about or talking to priests who had supported Daniel in the past, some of the biases my parents had seem to be spot on, or at least shared by some smart men. They tell of how they support the Sandinista ideals, but that Daniel ran and will run the country for his own personal betterment without regard to the people. An example is the Sandinista land reform which ended up giving the rich supporters of the Sandinistas the good land and giving bad land to poor people without training on how to financially manage a farm.

I consider myself lucky to be removed from the experiences from my parents and the experiences of these priests. Lucky in that I have not been scarred by a past Sandinista government and current scandals. Lucky in that I can be hopeful and optimistic that Ortega truly learned his lessons, has sincerely changed, has grown as a person and a president. Optimistice, but always critical.