Nicaragua - The Sad Decline of a Leftist Icon

By many accounts the Nicaraguan Sandinistas might have been the most decent and most promising of all leftist revolutionaries in Latin America (if not in the world). That makes the recent behavior of Daniel Ortega, the long time Sandinist leader and current president of Nicaragua, so sad:

While abandoning the ideals of the Sandinist revolution - the deal with the Catholic church on abortion seems particularly ugly - he keeps up a revolutionary guise when it is least desirable. His comments on the recently deceased Colombian FARC leader Manuel Marulanda:

"Nuestro hermano fue un luchador extraordinario, que batalló largos años y fue el guerrillero de más larga lucha en la historia de América latina y el Caribe"

(here an English summary by the IHT)