Enrique Bolaños

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Enrique José Bolaños Geyer (born 13 May 1928) is the current President of Nicaragua. President Bolaños is of Spanish and German heritage and was born in Masaya (department of Masaya).

He publicly opposed the Sandinista government of the 1980s, resulting in brief imprisonment, intimidation, threats from the government and political persecution. His successful agro-production company, SAIMSA, was confiscated by the Sandinista government.

Bolaños served as vice president under his predecessor, Arnoldo Alemán. On 6 November 2001 he beat Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista party in the presidential elections and was sworn in as president on 10 January 2002.

He was a member of the Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) until he broke with it to form the Alliance for the Republic (APRE). At the beginning of his term he led an anti-Corruption campaign against his predecessor and the head of the PLC, Arnoldo Alemán, sentencing him to 20 years in prison, but politically isolating himself from the influential Liberal Party. Institutional struggles for power between the legislative, executive and judicial branches have resulted in great inefficiency for the Bolaños government. Self-interested party politics traditionally dominate the Nicaraguan political arena.

In September and October of 2005, Bolaños was threatened with impeachment by a combined effort of the Liberal and Sandinista parties, but with the backing of the U.S. threats "to cut off aid", this "slow-motion coup" was reversed, and any constitutional changes put off until the following year [link] [link]. This reversal coincided with passage of the CAFTA by the Nicaraguan legislature [link]

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