By Ismael Lopez
MANAGUA – Former Nicaraguan president Enrique Bolanos, a conservative who challenged corruption on the right even as he remained a steadfast adversary of his leftwing successor Daniel Ortega, has died at the age of 93, his family said on Tuesday.
The Ortega government announced three days of mourning for Bolanos, who served as president from 2002-2007.
“With great sadness the family of engineer Enrique Bolanos Geyer, former president of the Republic of Nicaragua, announces the passing of their beloved father, grandfather and great-grandfather,” his relatives said in a statement.
Trained as an engineer, Bolanos led Nicaragua’s main business lobby in the 1980s. He had his properties confiscated and was twice jailed as a counter-revolutionary during an earlier Ortega presidency, following the ousting of the Somoza family from power in the Sandinista uprising of 1979.
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