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‘The people lost their fear’: How Nicaragua’s new revolution took shape

Managua, Nicaragua • Every day now, flag-waving crowds taunt a man who has ruled them for more than a decade, a man who does not allow protests.

Daniel Ortega, a 72-year-old Marxist guerrilla famed for his Cold War duels with Washington, held near total power in recent years, decorating the capital with billboards in his honor. Now protesters march down streets tagged with fresh graffiti reading: “Get out Ortega” and “Death to Daniel.”

The most momentous upheaval in this Central American country in nearly 40 years is underway, a change that is shaking one of the last towering figures from a generation of Latin American leftist revolutionaries who became rulers.