The Guardian takes on the Sandinistas

As I was perusing the world papers' headlines, I saw this article from The Guardian. Apart from characterizations which are misleading, such as failing to cite that Ortega has passed the budget by decree in the face of opposition* and asserting the number of municipalities won by the Sandinistas while failing to mention that the CSE has yet to come out with official numbers, the article at least attracts a bit of attention to the English-speaking readership.

Two things, I think, escape this author:
1) The youth of the Nicaraguan population. In terms of demography, Nicaragua is overwhelmingly young. The most fervent supporters of Ortega, often found in the universities, do not remember well, if at all, the 80s. Perhaps more importantly, they don't remember the 70s, if they were even born then. Nicaragua used to be known as the breadbasket of Central America, a self-sustaining nation which actually had a good deal of food exports. The Sandinista revolution all but destroyed this. As the author correctly cites, Nicaragua practically lives off the goodwill of the international community, whether it be monetary aid, subsidized oil, or food.
2) The seeming success of other leftist movements in Latin America. It seems to me that Nicaraguan leftists are looking at Venezuela, where --thanks to a fabulously successful propaganda campaign-- the Bolivarian Revolution can seem to be qualified as a success. Apart from the fact that it is an abject failure on all the major talking points (education, literacy, creation of jobs, creation of infrastructure, building houses, etc.) the one thing it might have going for it is the oil money it brings in. Nicaragua has nothing even close to comparable; in fact, it is quite the opposite: Nicaragua does not export anything on the same scale which brings in the same amount of foreign currency as Venezuela does. (I think it's been made abundantly clear that Nicaragua, sadly, is surviving off international hand outs.) This sharp discrepancy, willing or not, in understanding the stark differences in the countries' conditions has created a sort of delusion.

*This one irks me the most, because the author almost condescendingly mentions that the opposition controls the National Assembly, yet fails to mention that Ortega does not care what the will of the Assemblymen are, rather buys vote or passes his initiatives by degree.