The recent victory of Nicaragua’s Sheynnis Palacios in the Miss Universe beauty pageant hosted by El Salvador, is causing an unexpected headache for President Daniel Ortega and his authoritarian government.
Palacios’ victory - the first time Nicaragua has won the title - was initially hailed as a public relations win for the increasingly isolated government, which expressed its “legitimate joy and pride”. However, photos have subsequently emerged of Palacios showing her participating in anti-government protests in 2018. These have cast her as an unlikely rallying point for the opposition and perceived threat to the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) government.
The 18 November victory for Palacios, who is a graduate of the Jesuit-run Universidad Centroamericana (UCA), which is among the thousands of institutions shuttered by President Ortega and which served as a hub for anti-government protests in 2018, also prompted a rare show of public celebration in the streets by Nicaraguans, whose use of the blue-and-white national flag (rather than the FSLN’s red-and-black flag) appeared to further rile the Ortega government.
Palacios’ victory also drew a response from prominent exiles, such as the writer Gioconda Belli and the auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Managua, Silvio José Báez Ortega. Belli wrote on X (formerly Twitter) “I’m so happy to see the joy of Nicaraguans and to see them bring out the clandestine blue and white...Thanks to Sheynnis”, while on the same media outlet, Báez thanked her for “bringing joy to our long-suffering country” and for “giving us hope for a better future for our beautiful country”.
The Ortega government has been quick to respond: on 22 November Vice President and First Lady Rosario Murillo dubbed the celebrations an attempt to turn “a beautiful and well-deserved moment of pride into destructive coup-mongering”. The independent media is also reporting that Karen Celebertti, the director of the national beauty pageant, has been banned from returning to the country, along with her daughter, while her house was reportedly raided and her husband briefly detained.
