Sandinistas

Sandinistas members of a left-wing Nicaraguan political party, the Sandinist National Liberation Front (FSLN). The group, named for Augusto Cesar Sandino , a former insurgent leader, was formed in 1962 to oppose the regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle . In 1979 the Sandinistas launched an offensive from Costa Rica and Honduras that toppled Somoza. They established a junta that nationalized such industries as banking and mining, postponed elections, and moved steadily to the left, eventually espousing Marxist-Leninist positions. The Sandinista-dominated government was opposed by U.S.-supported guerrillas known as contras (see Nicaragua ). In 1984, Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega Saavedra won the Nicaraguan presidency in an election that was boycotted by some opposition groups. In 1990 the opposition candidate, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro , defeated Ortega, but Sandinistas continued to hold important positions in the police and army. In the mid-1990s a rift in the party led many opposed to Ortega's domination of the party and concerned about the party's drift from original ideals, including several former members of the junta, to form the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS). Although Ortega again lost a bid for the presidency in 1996, the Sandinistas became the major opposition party in the national assembly; the MRS only won one seat. Ortega also lost in 2001, but in 2006 he finally won the presidency again, running against a divided center-right opposition.

Sandinistas adherents of the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front which overthrew the Somoza regime in Nicaragua in 1979 and which ruled Nicaragua from 1979 to 1989 when they were defeated in free elections by an anti-Sandinista coalition. The Sandinistas took their name from the nationalist hero Augusto Sandino, who opposed the intervention of U.S. Marines in Nicaragua in the 1920s and 1930s. Sandino ended the fighting when the Marines withdrew in 1933, but he was killed the following year by Nicaraguan National Guard (Guardia Nacional) forces commanded by Anastasio Somoza.

Sandinista (Sandinista National Liberation Front) Revolutionary group in Nicaragua. They took their name from Augusto César Sandino, who opposed the dominant Somoza family and was killed in 1934. The Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza regime in 1979, and formed a government led by Daniel Ortega. In power, they were opposed by right-wing guerrillas, the Contra, supported by the USA. The conflict ended when the Sandinista agreed to free elections. They lost, but the Contra were disbanded and the Sandinista remain an influential political force.