Episode guest: Jeffrey Gould
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Nicaragua has a dictator for life. President Daniel Ortega, 80, announced the country won’t hold elections anytime soon, underscoring his effort to extend his nearly 20-year rule and dashing the opposition's hopes that he might allow a modicum of democracy, according to the Associated Press. Few expected next year's election to be free and fair, but Ortega won't even uphold the pretense.
Who are Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas, a leftist revolutionary movement founded in the early 1960s? Why is Ortega, who was first elected in 1984, still on the Central American political scene? Our guest is historian Jeffrey Gould.
Jeffrey Gould is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Indiana. He's an expert on Nicaragua as well as Central American social movements, ethnic conflicts, and political violence.