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# Nicaragua: heartbeat of protest
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/nicaragua-heartbeat-of-protest/
- Published: 2008-09-01T22:09:06.000Z
- Updated: 2019-02-14T22:59:10.000Z
- Author: openDemocracy Supporters
- Tags: #en, #Migrated, #Import 2026-04-09 19:46

[**Sergio Ramírez**](http://www.sergioramirez.org.ni/?ref=opendemocracy.net) is a Nicaraguan writer and politician  
who was a leading figure in the FSLN (Sandinista) revolution of 1979 against  
the Somoza dictatorship and later (1984-90) served as foreign minister  
of the country. His political journey saw him break in 1995 with the  
increasingly degraded leadership of FSLN leader and (now) twice Nicaraguan president, Daniel Ortega, to form the *Movimiento de Renovación Sandinista* (MRS). In five **openDemocracy** articles, **Sergio Ramírez** has [tracked](https://www.opendemocracy.net/author/Sergio%5FRamirez.jsp) the  
political comeback of Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo, and  
the authoritarian regression and moral decay of their politics.

His  
sixth and latest [essay](https://www.opendemocracy.net/article/nicaragua-a-scene-of-heartbreak)  
has a more hopeful tinge, however: in its depiction of the  
hunger-strike protest of revolutionary heroine Dora María Téllez and  
the refusal of famed singer Carlos Mejia Godoy to allow his music to be used as propaganda, the author hints that the civic  
forces of democratic dissent are finding new voice and confidence.

In an article in the Nicaraguan newspaper *El nuevo diario* (25 August 2008), Néstor  
Martinez even suggests that Dora María Téllez could be "[nuestra posible Lula](http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/blog/articulo/217?ref=opendemocracy.net)". It is a good  
time - with important municipal elections in November approaching - to  
become acquainted with the politics of a country that in the 1980s  
provoked such strong passions, and which again deserves attention and  
democratic solidarity.