Violeta Chamorro takes office as the President of Nicaragua, the first woman to hold the position.
Violeta Barrios Torres de Chamorro (Spanish pronunciation: [bjoˈleta tʃaˈmoro] 18 October 1929) is a Nicaraguan politician who served as President of Nicaragua from 1990 to 1997. She was the first and, to date, only woman to hold the position of president in Nicaragua.
Born into a landed family in southern Nicaragua, Chamorro was partially educated in the United States. After returning to her home country, she married and raised a family. Her husband, Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, was a journalist working at his family's newspaper, La Prensa, which he later inherited. As a result of his anti-government stance, he was often jailed or exiled, forcing Chamorro to spend a decade following him abroad or visiting him in jail. When he was assassinated in 1978, Chamorro took over the newspaper. Pedro's murder strengthened the Nicaraguan Revolution and his image, as wielded by his widow, became a powerful symbol for the opposition forces. Initially, when the Sandinistas were victorious over Anastasio Somoza Debayle, Chamorro fully supported them. She agreed to become part of the provisional government established under the Junta of National Reconstruction (Spanish: Junta de Gobierno de Reconstrucción Nacional, JGRN); however, when the Junta began moving in a more radical direction and signed agreements with the Soviet Union, Chamorro resigned and returned to the newspaper.
Under her direction, La Prensa continued to criticize the government and its policies despite threats and government-forced shutdowns. When Daniel Ortega announced that elections would be held in 1990, Chamorro was selected as the candidate for the opposition group known as the National Opposition Union (Spanish: Unión Nacional Opositora, UNO). This 14-party alliance ranged from conservatives and liberals to communists and because of ideological differences had difficulty in devising any political platform other than a promise to end the war. Despite polls indicating a victory for the incumbent Sandinista President Ortega, Chamorro won the election on 25 February 1990. She was the first elected female head of state in the Americas. She was also the second female to be elected in her own right as a head of government in the Americas, after Prime Minister Eugenia Charles of Dominica.
Chamorro was sworn into office on 25 April 1990. Chamorro's leadership covered six difficult years marked by economic strife and social unrest, but she was able to compromise with rivals, maintain a constitutional regime, re-establish international banking relationships and end the hyperinflation that had plagued the country for several years.
After leaving office on 10 January 1997, Chamorro worked on several international peace initiatives until poor health forced her to retire from public life.