As an idealistic youth, Cruz supported the Sandinistas, In a 1989 review for
Los Angeles Times,
Art Seidenbaum wrote that the book depicted Cruz as "almost
Holden Caulfield in Nicaragua, looking for the unphony cause and the dedicated leader in a thicket of intrigue, scandal, bloodshed, family grudges and fierce egos." On February 27, 2007, he presented his credentials as Nicaragua's Ambassador to the United States, appointed by recently elected President
Daniel Ortega. He resigned his post in March 2009 and returned to his teaching position at INCAE. In 2003, the work was translated and published in Spanish by the Coleccion Cultural de Centro America. He is also the co-author of
Varieties of Liberalism in Central America: Nation-States as Works in Progress (University of Texas Press, 2007) with
Forrest Colburn. His writings and articles on Latin America and the foreign policy of the United States have also appeared in such publications as the
New Republic,
Commentary,
New York Times,
Washington Post,
Los Angeles Times, and
SAIS Review. Cruz is one of the opposition pre-candidates for president in the
2021 Nicaraguan general election, enrolled with the
Alliance of Citizens for Liberty (ACxL) party, which by the end of May 2021 was the only remaining opposition party with legal standing to field a candidate in the November general election. He is being detained for allegations he “attacked Nicaraguan society and the rights of the people” in violation of Law 1055, enacted in December 2021, the “law for the defense of the rights of the people to independence, sovereignty, and self-determination for peace”, called the “Guillotine Law” by critics. ==References==