On the afternoon of this Monday, August 22, Fernando Baltodano, Sandinista mayor of the municipality of Diriamba, in the department of Carazo, was found dead. The mayor was found dead inside his truck, as seen in photographs posted on social networks.
Unofficially it became known that the Sandinista mayor had committed suicide with a shot to the head. His vehicle was found in a mountainous area located between the Diriamba-La Boquita highway.
Officials from the Mayor’s Office commented anonymously to La Prensa that last week the mayor’s office was intervened by the Nicaraguan Institute for Municipal Development (Inifom) “due to a problem with some checks,” the sources said.
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The last time the Sandinista mayor was seen publicly was on August 17 when he handed over a piece of land where five houses from the Bismarck Martínez program will begin to be built.
Who is Fernando Baltodano?
According to information compiled by the independent Urnas Abieras observatory, Fernando Baltodano was a departmental deputy for the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in Carazo, in the period 2012-2017. The Board of Directors of the National Assembly granted him permission to exercise the Mayor’s Office of Diriamba, even though he was a deputy. He was elected mayor in 2013, since that date he has held the position consecutively.
“In 2014, it was known in the media that Baltodano submitted his resignation (the reasons are unknown), but it was not accepted by his party, so he had to continue in the exercise of his functions,” said Urnas Abiertas.
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During the 2018 protests, he was pointed out on social networks for directing and paying vigilante groups with municipal funds, promoting confrontations between Sandinista militants and opponents who were marching civically. According to Open Urnas, the Sandinista mayor, together with Mayor Mariano Madrigal de Jinotepe, directed the massacre in Carazo.
“He also coordinated the attack by Ortega and paramilitary mobs on Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes; his auxiliary bishop, Silvio José Báez; and to the apostolic nuncio in Nicaragua, Monsignor Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag when they arrived at the Minor Basilica of San Sebastián to free a group of young people who were taking refuge in the temple and surrounded by paramilitaries”.
