Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Barrios

Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Barrios (born 24 September 1951) is a Nicaraguan journalist and politician. He began his career in journalism working at La Prensa, following the 1978 assassination of its editor, his father, Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal. Working on the side of the Contras in exile in the 1980s, he returned to the country in 1989 when his mother Violeta Barrios de Chamorro ran for president, and following her election, served as a Nicaraguan ambassador. He later became defense minister. In the 21st century, Chamorro has been a city councilor for Managua and deputy in the National Assembly, also for Managua. On 25 June 2021, he became part of a wave of arrests of opposition and civic figures in Nicaragua.

Early life and education Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Barrios was born in Managua on 24 September 1951. His parents were Pedro Joaquin Chamorro Cardenal, the anti-Somoza editor of La Prensa, Nicaragua's oldest newspaper, and his wife Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. Chamorro also joined the political opposition and was elected Political Secretary of the Social Democratic Party in 1983. of La Prensa from 1981 and continued until just after the 1984 elections, when he left Nicaragua following repeated harassment and censorship of the newspaper. He became a member of the Contra Nicaraguan Resistance Directorate in May 1987. From 1999 to 2002 he was executive director of the Nicaraguan Institute for Municipal Development (INIFOM). Running as a member of the Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC), then roiled by the corruption investigation of its former president Arnoldo Alemán, Chamorro earned 36% of the vote compared with 45% for the FSLN victor . Chamorro became a city councilor. and was elected to the National Assembly as a deputy for the department of Managua. Chamorro, a member of the opposition Citizens for Liberty Alliance party (ACxL), that is violating Law 1055, a controversial law passed in December 2020 by the FSLN-controlled legislature that allows the government to detain anyone it designates a "traitor to the homeland". Most of those arrested are facing the same charges and all have been sentenced to 90 days of preventive detention. Candidates under investigation are barred from running for public office in Nicaragua. Two days before his arrest, Chamorro gave interviews to Univision and CNN in which he was asked whether, with the leading presidential pre-candidates detained, he would consider running; he answered, "In politics one must never say no...I would be willing to serve my country, as I have always been."