MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Opposition alliance agrees on a contender to challenge Nicaraguan dictator Ortega

The ruling couple Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo

The main opposition alliance in Nicaragua named a former right-wing guerrilla and a beauty queen as its candidates for the coming presidential election in November. The Citizens Alliance for Liberty, CXL, nominated Oscar Sobalvarro, 68 as president hopeful and ex-Miss Nicaragua 2017, Berenice Quezada, 27 to complete the ticket.

 Sobalvarro is a former leader of the right wing guerrilla groups Contras, which were supported by the United States in their fight against the Marxist oriented Sandinistas governments of Daniel Ortega.

“That painful war, among brothers, could have been avoided if the Sandinistas had kept their promise of democracy in 1979, when the downfall of longtime dictator Anastasio Somoza, and had allowed free elections”, said the opposition contender

After his nomination Sobalvarro said there was still hope to remove the current dictator Daniel Ortega as in 1990, “we went to vote under a military government, but the people with their ballots defeated the regime, and we hope that history will repeat itself”.

It won't be an easy task this time, because Ortega has imprisoned all potential competitors, some thirty in the last two months so far, alleging they have had contacts with foreign powers to overthrow his government.

As to running companion for vice president Ms Quezada, with no known political militancy history, allegedly she joined the 2018 protests movements against Ortega and has been recurrent with criticisms on social media.

But following the nomination La Prensa published a picture of the former pageant modeling for an outlet belonging to Ortega's daughter Camila, opening a big question mark about the links between Ms Quezada and Camila Ortega.

Daniel Ortega has ruled Nicaragua with his wife Rosario Murillo as vice president since 2017, and it is estimated that during the recent protests some 400 people were killed and thousands imprisoned.

Ortega is a former guerrilla, close friend of the Castro brothers in Cuba and the Maduro gang in Venezuela. He was elected to office in 1979 and again in 1985 but since 2007 has ruled autocratically and in 2014 reformed the constitution scrapping presidential term limits.