Former Nicaraguan President Violeta Chamorro Dies at 95
The former president of Nicaragua passed away in San Jose, Costa Rica, on June 14, 2025, her family confirmed in a statement.
HAVANA TIMES – Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, former president of Nicaragua, passed away on Saturday, June 14, 2025, in San Jose, Costa Rica, at the age of 95. She was the first woman in the Americas to be elected president by popular vote.
The Chamorro Barrios family confirmed the death through a statement on Saturday morning. “Our mother, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, former president of Nicaragua, passed away today, June 14, 2025, at 2:21 a.m. in San Jose, Costa Rica, at the age of 95, after a long illness,” the statement read.
They noted that “Doña Violeta passed away peacefully, surrounded by the love and care of her children and the people who provided her with extraordinary care. She is now at peace with the Lord.”
The former president, born in Rivas on October 18, 1929, arrived in the Costa Rican capital on October 17, 2023, after a prolonged medical condition in Nicaragua and years of retirement from public life.
On October 1, 2018, her family announced that Violeta Barrios de Chamorro had suffered “a stroke or cerebral embolism.” Since then, details about her health had been kept private.
She Will Rest Temporarily in Costa Rica
The family added, “In the coming hours, we will share information about the religious ceremony to be held in San Jose to celebrate her life of love and generosity toward her family and her beloved homeland, Nicaragua.”
“Her remains,” they continued, “will rest temporarily in San Jose, Costa Rica, until Nicaragua is once again a Republic, and her patriotic legacy can be honored in a free and democratic country.”
They concluded by thanking “Nicaraguans everywhere around the world for their prayers and solidarity, and especially the people and government of Costa Rica, who welcomed her during these final years of her life.”
Violeta Chamorro’s Presidency
“The soul and very essence of Nicaragua is freedom,” said Violeta Barrios de Chamorro in one of the most memorable moments of her speech as she assumed the presidency of Nicaragua on April 25, 1990. That day, she pledged to bring peace to a nation emerging from what felt like an endless war.
Chamorro became the first figure of national leadership who did not rely on authoritarianism or violence to guide a country long torn by division. In the February 1990 elections, she defeated then-president and candidate of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), Daniel Ortega, who remains in power today after returning to the presidency in January 2007.
“It is a beautiful thing when a Republic rises without bloodshed, like a new sun of justice and freedom,” she added in that inaugural address.
In her memoirs, the former president wrote about how difficult it was to take charge of a country devastated by the bloody civil war of the 1980s, which left tens of thousands dead.
Violeta Chamorro was also the wife of the journalist and Martyr of Public Liberties, Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, assassinated on January 10, 1978, during the Somoza dictatorship.
Three Children in Exile
Three of the former president’s children are living in exile and have been stripped of their nationality by order of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo. Their properties have also been confiscated.
Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Barrios, a former political prisoner of the Ortega regime, was deported to the United States in February 2023. That same month, Cristiana Chamorro Barrios, who now resides in Costa Rica, was also released from prison and banished. Both had been jailed in 2021 after expressing interest in running for president.
Meanwhile, her son Carlos Fernando Chamorro, director of CONFIDENCIAL, has been in exile in Costa Rica since June 2021.