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Weekly Report - 26 April 2018 (WR-18-16)

NICARAGUA: Nicaragua explodes

President Daniel Ortega is facing the biggest crisis since his Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) government took office in 2007. An unprecedented show of unrest in response to a brutal crackdown on protesters, which has so far left over 30 dead (many of them students), has led some to discern, for the first time, cracks in the iron grip exerted by Ortega and his powerful First Lady and Vice President Rosario Murillo, over the country. Initially sparked by opposition to changes to the social security system (INSS), the government’s response has ignited long-running frustration with Ortega, whose various hammer blows to the country’s democratic institutions since taking office, efforts to create a family dynasty, and repression of dissent, have long left him open to accusations of reproducing the very caudillismo that he fought to overthrow in 1979 with the defeat of former dictator Anastasio Somoza (1967-1972; 1974-1979).

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