The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), better known simply as the Sandinistas, is a socialist party in Nicaragua, founded on 19 July 1961 by Carlos Fonseca in opposition to Anastasio Somoza's dictatorship. Under the leadership of Daniel Ortega, the Sandinistas succeeded in the Nicaraguan Revolution of 1979 and established a left-wing government supported by the Soviet Union and Cuba, also allowing for the drug trafficker Pablo Escobar to smuggle drugs into America. The United States backed the right-wing Contras in their struggle against the Sandinistas for these two reasons, and the Nicaraguan Civil War ended in 1990 when the Sandinistas lost elections to the right-wingers. However, the FSLN regained a majority in politics in 2005, and it remains an important political party in the country.
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