Sunday dinner at Violeta Chamorro’s house was a microcosm of how deeply divided Nicaragua was in the Eighties. Two of her children, Carlos and Claudia, supported the Marxist-leaning Sandinistas that had taken power in 1979 after overthrowing the decades-long dictatorship. The other two, Cristiana and Pedro Jr, were prominent members of the right-wing US-backed Contra rebels. And as they arrived for dinner, no quarter was being given in a decade-long civil war that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Nicaraguans. It is not known whether politics was banned at the señora’s table, but attendance was non-negotiable and peace generally reigned over the gallo pinto.
Metaphorically, one could argue that this domestic scene was repeated from February 1990, when Chamorro sprang a huge surprise by defeating the Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega and being elected the country’s first female president. She was expected to unite her fractured country, but in truth was not interested in politics at all. Greatness had been thrust upon her because she was the relatively unassuming wife of Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, the proprietor of the newspaper La Prensa who became a martyr to freedom of speech in Nicaragua after he was assassinated in 1978 on the orders of the country’s dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, also known as Tachito.
La Prensa had long been a thorn in the side of the country’s authoritarian government and Pedro had spent periods in prison or in exile. His death was the catalyst for the revolution of 1978-79 that ousted Tachito and brought to power the Sandinista National Liberation Front, led by Ortega.
Chamorro, who had taken over ownership of La Prensa to honour her late husband, was invited to become one of the five leaders of the provisional government, known as the Junta of National Reconstruction. Nine months later she resigned. By her own admission, she was not politically savvy at all, but she could see quite clearly the Orwellian trope — in lurching towards a Marxist state that would be modelled on Fidel Castro’s Cuba, the Sandinistas under Ortega were moving in a direction that would make them just as authoritarian as their predecessors. Civil war began in 1981. La Prensa under her ownership became fiercely critical of Ortega, who had been elected president in 1984. The newspaper was closed down by Ortega in 1986 and Chamorro was threatened with a 30-year jail term.
With Nicaragua devastated and bankrupted by years of misery, poverty and death that accompanied the fighting, and the population desperate for peace, hostilities largely ended in 1989. Under pressure from other Latin American leaders, Ortega agreed to hold free elections in February 1990. He was in a strong position; the only chance of beating him was for the country’s splintered opposition to unite. Such was the extreme political spectrum of the coalition of 14 anti-Sandinista parties (known as Unión Nacional Opositora or UNO) that attempts to choose a leader were abortive. Finally, Chamorro was offered the leadership on the basis that she was the widow of the “great martyr” Pedro Chamorro and, because she was untainted by partisanship, she was the only figure who could prevent implosion. No one was more surprised than her, but she accepted.
Ortega felt confident. He had big sums of money at his disposal and appeared at rallies with a swagger alongside his election slogan, a fighting rooster. Indeed, he was so confident of victory that he allowed international monitors, including the former US president Jimmy Carter, to observe the election.
Chamorro sprang a huge surprise by winning 55 per cent of the vote and proclaimed: “All across the world, people like you are burying communism and proclaiming democracy. So set your watches. Set them to the same hour as Poland, as Bulgaria, as Czechoslovakia, as Chile. Because this is the hour of democracy and freedom — this is the hour of the people!”
Beyond the rhetoric, she made two promises: she would bring lasting peace, and national conscription would end. At a ceremony in the jungle in June 1990, Contra rebels surrendered their arms to UN peacekeeping forces. Chamorro walked into the throng of Contras, kissing them on the cheek. When other Contras refused to comply, she used US money to buy their weapons and bribed them with land. It worked.
An amnesty for political crimes was announced and thousands of former “enemies of the state” were repatriated. More controversially, Sandinistas were invited to be part of her government and retained positions in the army and the police — notably Umberto Ortego (obituary, October 12, 2024), the brother of Daniel, who remained head of the army, albeit one that was now half the size. Peace held.
Crippling loans to the IMF and World Bank were cancelled and US aid flowed. Inflation, which once ran at Weimer Republic levels of more than 13,000 per cent, was brought down to 11 per cent and international banks began operating in the country again. The economy was stabilised, but her attempt to impose free market reforms was hobbled by the pro-Sandinista unions, which staged a series of national strikes. Unemployment remained at about 40 per cent and promised modernisation of services and infrastructure stalled.
Many blamed Chamorro for her naivety but others hailed her seven-year administration as a smart compromise that prevented the country from sliding back into civil war. Chamorro deliberately held herself above the gritty day-to-day realities of government. Her son-in-law Antonio Lacayo was the de facto prime minister, responsible for navigating the infighting between the Sandinista and Contra factions. Playing heavily on her devout Catholic faith, Chamorro portrayed herself as the mother of the nation on a divine mission, always dressed in white. “I have enormous faith in God,” she said. “He will illuminate me and show me how to do what my conscience dictates.”
Violeta Barrios Torres was born into a wealthy ranching family in the town of Rivas, Nicaragua, in 1929. She was one of seven children of Carlos José Barrios Sacasa and Amalia Torres Hurtado, and spent much of her childhood attending Catholic boarding schools in Texas and Virginia. In 1950 she married Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, who came from one of Nicaragua’s most prominent families. Pedro inherited the newspaper La Prensa after the death of his father in 1952, transforming it into the principal mouthpiece of opposition to the dictatorship.
Chamorro bore him four children: Carlos would edit the Sandinista newspaper Barricuda, Claudia would become a Sandinista diplomat, Cristiana would work at La Prensa, and Pedro Jr would become a Contra leader. All survive her.
Chamorro abided by the constitution to serve one term in office and not to contest the 1996 election. Her successor, Arnoldo Alemán, who defeated Ortega, took a more hardline attitude to the Sandinista faction but his administration was marked by rampant corruption. Some would argue that the greater social unrest that ensued paved the way for Ortega’s return to power in 2007. Chamorro watched in sadness as he imposed increasingly authoritarian rule, imprisoning Cristiana and Pedro Jr in 2021 and in 2023 stripping them of their nationality and sending them into exile.
Chamorro herself, now in ill health, saw out her years in Costa Rica. She had never been tempted to return to active politics and remained a largely revered figure in Nicaragua. If success was measured in peace not war — as it was by many ordinary people who were tired of the conflict that had ravaged their country — then Chamorro was a success.
Violeta Chamorro, president of Nicaragua, was born on October 18, 1929. She died after a long illness on June 14, 2025, aged 95