joining us now from mexico city is elisabeth malkin, a reporter for "the new york times," who usverstral america. she isback from nicaragua, where she witnessed a battle in the town of masaya earlier this week. thanks for joining us. first of all, what are the core issues that people are fighting over or pushing back against? >> reporter: well, daniel ortega n election 11 years ago. and when did he that, he began to te over control of all the branches of government. so basically, daniel ortega control over the supreme court, the legislature, thelectoral tribunal, and people really feel that this is turning into a one-party state. tou have to be loyal to the government in ordeo get basic benefits. you have to join the party in order to get any access to govement jobs. and the proximate cause was the cuts to social security and so what began as peaceful protest suddenly this changed when the government fired on people. and social media had an enormous attract because what you had were pictures of elderly people being beaten up by crowds loyal toeaniel ortga. and this spread rapidly thr