Constitutional reform establishes co-presidency between Rosario Murillo and Ortega in Nicaragua

▲ Rosario Murillo in an image from 2018. Opponents point out that the amendment legalizes the absolute power of the ruling couple.Photo Afp

AFP, Reuters and Xinhua

La Jornada Newspaper
Saturday, November 23, 2024, p. 20

Managua. The National Assembly of Nicaragua, controlled by the Sandinista Front, yesterday generally approved the partial reform of the Nicaraguan Constitution, which opens the door for the subordination of all powers of the State to the presidency, in the hands of Daniel Ortega and his wife. , Vice President Rosario Murillo, and in her points establishes the creation of a co-presidency joint between both leaders.

The reform package, sent last Tuesday to the assembly by Ortega with urgencywas approved in the first legislature with the unanimous vote of the 91 pro-government deputies without discussion, confirmed the president of the parliamentary body, Gustavo Porras, before the plenary session.

According to the Constitution, reforms to it must be approved in two legislative periods before they come into force. The current legislature ends in December and the next one begins on January 10, when the reform would be approved in its entirety, Porras estimated.

After the vote, the opposition reiterated its claims, from exile and within the country, that the initiative legalizes absolute power of Ortega and Murillo. The Organization of American States (OAS) has accused the couple of trying increase their absolute control of the State and perpetuate themselves in power.

With the modifications, the reform extends the presidential term from five to six years, and confirms the power that Murillo already has by equaling that of Ortega, because it raises her rank from vice president to co-president.

The text also grants total power to the Executive, establishing that the figure of co-president will coordinate to the legislative, judicial, electoral, control and oversight, regional and municipal bodieswhom the Constitution previously recognized as independent or autonomous.

Ortega, a 79-year-old former guerrilla, governed Nicaragua in the 1980s after the triumph of the popular Sandinista revolution by overthrowing the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza in 1979. In 2007 he returned to power, and since then his critics point out that he has established a dictatorship and the nepotism with his wife.

Specialists explain that both radicalized their positions and increased control over society after the 2018 protests, whose repression left 320 dead, according to the United Nations. The government considered these mobilizations an attempted coup d’état launched by the United States.

In the reform, Nicaragua is defined as a State revolutionary and socialistand includes among the national symbols the red-and-black flag of the Sandinista National Liberation Front.

It also establishes that the State will watch to the press and the Church so that they do not respond to foreign interestsand in the case of companies so that they do not apply sanctions like those that the United States has imposed on Nicaragua.

In addition, it makes official the withdrawal of Nicaraguan nationality from those considered traitors to the countryas the government did with some 450 critics and opponents in recent years.

The reform empowers the presidency to order the intervention of the army in support of the national police, when the stability of the republic requires itand authorizes police and military to temporarily occupy positions in the Executive field.

Formally create the volunteer policeemerged in response to the social protests of 2018, and was composed mainly of former soldiers who fought during the Sandinista revolution (1979-1990).