A leftist who won’t help the poor.

Nicaragua

Editorial

La Prensa

President Daniel Ortega knows “how to run his mouth,” said the Managua Prensa in an editorial. It’s less clear that he knows how to run the country. During the eight months that the former Sandinista leader has been in office, the poor have gotten poorer. Those who have jobs are the lucky ones: Ortega fired thousands of government workers “simply because they were not his followers.” Half of Nicaraguans are living on less than $1 a day, yet prices keep going up. Gas and food are more expensive than when Ortega took office, and blackouts now last up to six hours a day. Nicaraguans are growing panicky. Many have emptied their bank accounts of cordobas and are buying dollars, “desperate to get hold of some hard currency before the economy collapses.” All Ortega can do, it seems, is offer us leftist slogans. He curries favor with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, an authoritarian if there ever was one, by denouncing President Bush as a “tyrant” and “warmonger.” Worse, he’s now starting to suck up to Iran, a truly dangerous country that exports terrorism. Nicaraguans can see through Ortega’s strategy. Anti-imperialist rhetoric won’t make us forget that “we are cinching our belts ever tighter.”

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