Q24N — Nicaragua’s dictatorial couple, Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo, have solidified their absolute control in Nicaragua. As president and “co-president” they will control all the powers of the State and civil society, according to a constitutional reform ratified this Thursday by Parliament.
The law to reform the Constitution of Nicaragua was “approved in its entirety in the second legislature,” announced the National Assembly on its X account. This was the last step before the change in the Magna Carta comes into effect.
📍 Nueva Constitución, Nuevas Victorias pic.twitter.com/oWfu4049y1
— Asamblea Nacional Nicaragua (@AsambleaNi) January 30, 2025
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The government mandate goes from 5 to 6 years and the rank of the already powerful Murillo rises from vice president to “co-president,” according to the reform approved in November in a first period of sessions of Congress dominated by the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).
Ortega, a 79-year-old former guerrilla who ruled Nicaragua in the 1980s after the triumph of the Sandinista revolution, has been in power since 2007 and his critics accuse him of establishing a “family dictatorship” in Nicaragua, together with his wife, 73 years old.
The reform, proposed by Ortega, establishes that the co-presidents will now coordinate “the legislative, judicial, electoral” and oversight bodies, previously recognized as independent in the Magna Carta.
Nicaragua is now defined as a “revolutionary” and “socialist” state and includes among its national symbols the red and black flag of the FSLN, a former guerrilla group under whose leadership a popular uprising overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979.
The Regional Office for Central America of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed in a statement its “deep concern” about the approval of the reform, considering that it “deepens setbacks in civil and political liberties” in the Central American country.
“These drastic changes mark the destruction of the rule of law and fundamental freedoms in Nicaragua (…) Ortega and Murillo have consecrated and consolidated their absolute power,” assured AFP the American lawyer Reed Brody, member of a group of UN experts on this Central American country.
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Ortega and Murillo radicalized their positions and increased their control over Nicaraguan society after the 2018 protests, whose repression left 320 dead according to the UN, considered by the government to be an attempted coup sponsored by Washington.
The reform establishes that the State will “monitor” the press and the Church so that they do not respond to “foreign interests,” and in the case of companies so that they do not apply sanctions such as those that 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 did with some 450 critics and opponents in recent years.
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Another controversial provision of the reformed Constitution is the creation of a “Voluntary Police”, made up of civilians, as an “auxiliary and support body” to the security forces, which refers to what happened in 2018.
With their faces covered with black hoods, more than 15,000 civilians have been sworn in by the Nicaraguan authorities as “volunteer police” since mid-January, even before the reform was fully ratified.
During the protests, hooded and heavily armed men, whom the government called the “people”, intervened to lift the trenches set up by university students and control the protesters.
The 1987 Constitution has been reformed a dozen times by deputies close to Ortega, including one that established indefinite presidential reelection.
Presidency with superpowers
The constitutional amendment establishes that Nicaragua is a “revolutionary” State, free, sovereign, independent, which recognizes the person, the family and the community as protagonists of “direct democracy”, that the revolutionary power is exercised directly by the people, and the people exercise the power of the State through the Presidency of the Republic, which directs the Government and coordinates the legislative, judicial, electoral, and auditing bodies and the autonomous entities.
The Presidency will direct the Government and, as Head of State, will coordinate the legislative, judicial, electoral, control, and regional and municipal bodies, according to the norm.
It also states that the Presidency is the Supreme Head of the Nicaraguan Army, the National Police and the Ministry of the Interior.
In addition, the Presidency will be made up of a male and female co-president, who will exercise their functions for a period of six years, and may appoint vice presidents without being elected by popular vote.
It also includes as a national symbol the flag of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), the party in government since 2007.
The Presidency may also order the intervention of the Nicaraguan Army in support of the National Police, when the stability of the Republic requires it.
Media surveillance and voluntary police
It also creates “patriotic reserve military forces, as part of the Nicaraguan Army, which will be made up voluntarily of officers, officials, non-commissioned officers, class, soldiers and sailors who have passed to the honorable condition of retirement or discharge.”
It also creates the voluntary police as an auxiliary and support body to the National Police, made up of Nicaraguans “who provide their services voluntarily.”
Although the figure of voluntary police did not exist in the Constitution, Ortega stated in September 2022 that the Army, the Police and the “voluntary police” helped restore “peace” in Nicaragua after the popular revolt that broke out in April 2018 over controversial social security reforms and left hundreds dead.
According to humanitarian organizations and the opposition, these armed civilians are “paramilitary and paramilitary groups” that acted with the acquiescence of the State in the so-called “Operation Clean-up” with which the Government neutralized the demonstrations against it.
The State of Nicaragua will also monitor that the media are not “subjected” to foreign interests or spread false news that violate the rights of Nicaraguans.
With information from AFP and EFE
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