Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas Go Full-Blown North Korea

Nicaraguan strongman and wife will rule like the Kim family of North Korea, the Ceausescus of Romania, or the Hoxha couple of Albania.

I recall when the Sandinistas and their charismatic young leader, Daniel Ortega, ousted the hated Somoza dictatorship in 1979. At first they appeared to be European-style social democrats, who took up arms only when the repression of Somoza compelled them to do so. We quickly learned that the Sandinistas were little more than communists with a different name. It took eleven years for the people of Nicaragua to have a free election, and they voted out the Sandinistas. In 2007, the voters of Nicaragua returned Ortega to power, and since then it’s been nothing but a steady erosion of personal freedoms and the enrichment of Ortega and his cronies. (Don’t crash on the voters of Nicaragua; we just returned Trump to office!)

Now Ortega and his wife, who has effectively been a co-ruler whenever her husband is in power, have decided it’s time to shown their true colors and establish a North Korean style family dynasty. Their rubber stamp legislature just approved the changes necessary to end the last vestiges of democracy and a republic in Nicaragua.

Way back in the 80’s, I was a criminal defense and deportation defense lawyer in San Francisco. There was a very large Nicaraguan immigrant population, and it was mostly anti-Sandinista, though there were also people who fled the country because they were persecuted by the Contras. As an…