The Sandinista Shell Game
An economic slowdown in Nicaragua is likely sooner rather than later. At that point, local business leaders will feel rather less proud of their cozy relationship with an authoritarian government – and the government will find it much harder to secure a restive population’s quiescence.
SANTIAGO – On every other block in downtown Managua, massive billboards proclaim that, owing to God’s grace, “Years of Victory” are here. Aside from the Almighty, the purveyors of such victories are the larger-than-life President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, both duly portrayed with gaze fixed heavenward. Their creed, one reads, is “Christianity, Socialism, and Solidarity.”
SANTIAGO – On every other block in downtown Managua, massive billboards proclaim that, owing to God’s grace, “Years of Victory” are here. Aside from the Almighty, the purveyors of such victories are the larger-than-life President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, both duly portrayed with gaze fixed heavenward. Their creed, one reads, is “Christianity, Socialism, and Solidarity.”