Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo have consolidated their absolute control in Nicaragua: as president and “co-president” they will control all state powers and civil society, according to a constitutional reform ratified Thursday by Parliament. The government term extends from five to six years, and the already powerful Murillo rises in rank from vice president to “co-president,” according to the reform approved in November in a first legislative period and now in the second necessary for it to take effect.
Ortega, a 79-year-old former guerrilla who governed Nicaragua in the 1980s after the Sandinista revolution’s triumph, has been in power since 2007, and critics accuse him of establishing a “family dictatorship” in Nicaragua with his 73-year-old wife. The reform, approved “unanimously” by a Congress dominated by the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), establishes that the co-presidents will coordinate “the legislative, judicial, and electoral bodies,” previously recognized as independent powers.
“These drastic changes mark the destruction of the rule of law and fundamental freedoms in Nicaragua,” said U.S. lawyer Reed Brody, member of a UN expert group evaluating human rights in Nicaragua. Congress also approved a motion presented by the legislative chief making the government term rule retroactive, extending Ortega’s current period until 2028, governing alongside Murillo.
Setback
Nicaragua is now defined as a “revolutionary” and “socialist” state and includes among national symbols the red-and-black FSLN flag, the leftist ex-guerrilla group that overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979. Parliament “has sealed a new chapter in our history of blessing, freedom, national dignity, national pride, unanimously approving the new Constitution,” said Murillo, highlighting that Nicaragua is a “model of direct democracy.”
The Regional Office for Central America of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed in a statement its “deep concern,” considering the reform “deepens setbacks in civil and political liberties” in the Central American country. Ortega and Murillo radicalized their positions and increased control over Nicaraguan society after the 2018 protests, whose repression left 320 dead according to the UN, considered by the government as a coup attempt sponsored by Washington.
The reform establishes that the State will “monitor” the press and Church to ensure they don’t respond to “foreign interests,” and in the case of businesses, to prevent them from applying sanctions like those the United States has imposed on Nicaragua. It also makes official the withdrawal of Nicaraguan nationality from those considered “traitors to the homeland,” as the government has done with about 450 critics and opponents in recent years.
Thousands of hooded individuals
Another controversial rule in the reformed Constitution is the creation of a “Volunteer Police,” composed of civilians, as an “auxiliary and support body” to security forces, referencing what occurred in 2018. With faces covered by black hoods, more than 15,000 civilians have been sworn in by Nicaraguan authorities as “volunteer police” since mid-January, even before the reform was fully ratified.
During the 2018 protests, hooded and heavily armed men, whom the government called “the people,” intervened to remove barricades set up by university students and control protesters. The 1987 Constitution has been reformed a dozen times by pro-Ortega deputies, including establishing indefinite presidential reelection.
