Background and career
José Daniel Ortega Saavedra ( or-TAY-gə; Spanish: [daˈnjel oɾˈteɣa]; born 11 November 1945) is a Nicaraguan politician, revolutionary, and former guerrilla fighter who, under various titles, has been the leader of Nicaragua since 2007 and previously from 1979 to 1990. He first came to power as the coordinator of the Junta of National Reconstruction from 1979 to 1985, and then served as president of Nicaragua from 1985 until 1990. He reassumed the presidency in 2007 and has served alongside his wife Rosario Murillo as co-president since February 2025. Ortega has been described as an authoritarian leader and has invited comparisons to Anastasio Somoza Debayle. Multiple media outlets and politicians in the international community have referred to him and his wife as dictators. Ortega came to prominence with the overthrow and exile of US-backed dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1979 during the Nicaraguan Revolution. As a leader in the Sandinista National Liberation Front (Spanish: Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN) Ortega became leader of the ruling Junta of National Reconstruction. A Marxist–Leninist, Ortega pursued a program of nationalization, land reform, wealth redistribution, and literacy programs during his first period in office. Ortega's government was responsible for the forced displacement of 10,000 indigenous people. In 1984, Ortega won Nicaragua's presidential election with over 60% of the vote as the FSLN's candidate. During his first term, he implemented policies to achieve leftist reforms across Nicaragua. Throughout the 1980s, Ortega's government faced a rebellion by US-backed rebels, known as the Contras. After a presidency marred by conflict and economic collapse, Ortega was defeated in the 1990 general election by Violeta Chamorro. Ortega was an unsuccessful presidential candidate in 1996 and 2001 but won the 2006 general election. In office, he allied with fellow Latin American socialists. His second administration abandoned most of his earlier leftist principles, alienating many of his former revolutionary allies. Under his tenure, Nicaragua has experienced democratic backsliding. In June 2018, organizations such as Amnesty International and the Organization of American States reported that Ortega had engaged in a violent oppression campaign against anti-government protests. The violent crackdown and subsequent constriction of civil liberties have led to waves of emigration to neighboring Costa Rica, with more than 30,000 Nicaraguans filing for asylum in that country. His government jailed many potential rival candidates in the 2021 general election, including Cristiana Chamorro Barrios. Ortega's government also imprisoned other opponents, such as former allies Dora María Téllez and Hugo Torres Jiménez. In August 2021, Nicaragua cancelled the operating permits of six US and European NGOs. Many critics of the Ortega government, including opposition leaders, journalists and members of civil society, fled the country in mid-2021. In his fourth term, Ortega ordered the closure of several NGOs, universities, and newspapers, and resumed his repression of the Catholic Church after a brief rapprochement, imprisoning prelate Rolando José Álvarez Lagos.
Ortega was born in La Libertad in Chontales Department, into a working-class family. His parents, Daniel Simeón Ortega Cerda and Lidia Albertina Saavedra Rivas, were opposed to the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. Ortega's mother was imprisoned by Somoza's National Guard for being in possession of "love letters", which police said were coded political missives. Ortega and his two brothers grew up to become revolutionaries. His late brother Humberto Ortega was a former general, military leader, and published writer, and the third brother Camilo Ortega died fighting the Somoza regime in 1978. They had a sister, Germania, who died.
Seeking stable employment, the family migrated from La Libertad to the provincial capital of Juigalpa, and then to a middle-class neighborhood in Managua. In Managua, Ortega and his brother studied at the upper-middle-class high school, the LaSalle Institute, where Ortega was classmates with Arnoldo Aleman, who would go on to be mayor of Managua (1990–1995) and later President of Nicaragua (1997–2002). Ortega's father Daniel Ortega Cedra detested US military intervention in Nicaragua and Washington's support for the Somoza government. He imparted this anti-American sentiment to his sons.
Ortega was first arrested for political activities at the age of 15 and quickly joined the then-underground Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in 1963. In 1964, Ortega travelled to Guatemala, where the police arrested him and turned him over to the Nicaraguan National Guard. After his release from detention, Ortega arranged the assassination of his torturer, Guardsman Gonzalo Lacayo, in August 1967.
He was imprisoned in 1967 for an armed robbery of a branch of the Bank of America. Ortega was released in late 1974, along with other Sandinista prisoners, in exchange for Somocista hostages. While imprisoned at the Modelo jail, just outside Managua, Ortega wrote poems, including "En la prisión" ("In the Prison"), which was published in the literary journal Casa de las Américas in 1971. The poem's closing lines refer to the prisoners not having known Managua "in a miniskirt". This phrase has sometimes been reported as the title of a separate poem, but biographer Kenneth E. Morris suggests that no such separate poem may exist and that the reports may instead refer to the ending of "In the Prison". During his imprisonment, Ortega was tortured. While he was incarcerated at El Modelo, his mother helped stage protests and hunger strikes for political prisoners; this resulted in improving the treatment of incarcerated Sandinistas.
Upon release in 1974, Ortega was exiled to Cuba. There he received training in guerrilla warfare from Fidel Castro's Marxist–Leninist government. He later secretly returned to Nicaragua.
