Crowds of supporters during Daniel Ortega's inauguration speech. Wikimedia Commons. All Rights Reserved.
For three months Daniel Ortega and his government in Nicaragua were under intense pressure to resign – from protesters and opposition groups, from local media and from right-wing politicians in the US. But by mid-July it became clear that, despite persistent images of near-collapse painted by the international press, the country appears to be returning to something close to normality. How did a protest that seemed so strong when it began, lose momentum so quickly?
Daniel Ortega has been in power since 2007, in the last election won 72% of the vote and until recently was running high in independent opinion polls. Despite this, a casual reader of the national and international media would get the impression that he’s deeply despised.
