Cristiana Chamorro Barrios
Cristiana Chamorro Barrios is a Nicaraguan journalist, nonprofit executive and political candidate. Vice-president of La Prensa, she was an aspiring presidential candidate in the 2021 Nicaraguan general election until the government of Daniel Ortega disqualified her from running and ordered her arrest in early June 2021.
Chamorro is the daughter of newspaper editor Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, who was assassinated in 1978, and Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who became president of Nicaragua in 1990. Cristiana began working at La Prensa following her father's death and served as its editor from 1987 to 1991. She also served in the role of First Lady of Nicaragua during her mother's presidency. She later became director of a press freedom foundation honoring her mother, the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation, until new legal restrictions on civic organizations in Nicaragua forced the closure of the foundation in 2021.
Career
''La Prensa''
Chamorro is the daughter of assassinated newspaper editor Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal and former Nicaraguan president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. Her father, a critic of the Somoza regime, was murdered in 1978, turning the tide of support against the dictatorship which fell to the Sandinista National Liberation Front the following year. Cristiana joined her mother in working at his paper, La Prensa, and by 35 was editor of the paper. She served in the role from January 1987 to April 1991.She supported her mother's 1989 campaign for the presidency, but once her mother took office, the paper, historically an opposition outlet, came to be seen as a government mouthpiece. Readership declined and by the winter of 1990 Violeta decided to cede her role as publisher and give her shares in the paper to Cristiana. However her late father's relatives, who controlled 60 percent of the paper, were unhappy about this and tried to force out Cristiana for political reasons; her husband Antonio Lacayo was a major figure in her mother's administration and more friendly to the just-defeated Sandinista National Liberation Front than the other side of the family wanted, and they felt the paper had followed this tendency. As a compromise Cristiana Chamorro became chair of the board and anti-FSLN editor Horacio Ruiz became executive editor. Their relationship became acrimonious to the point of no longer speaking, and Chamorro's brother Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Barrios soon replaced Ruiz, although she also had disagreements with her brother, who had been a Contra.
As of 2021, Chamorro is vice-president of the paper, Nicaragua's largest.