MEXICO CITY (AP) — Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega on Wednesday proposed a constitutional reform that would officially make him and his wife, current Vice President Rosario Murillo, “co-presidents” of the Central American nation.
While the initiative must pass through the country’s legislature, Ortega and Murillo’s Sandinista party controls Congress and all government institutions, so it will likely be approved.
The proposal also seeks to expand the presidential term of office from five to six years. Ortega introduced another bill on Wednesday that would make it illegal for anyone to enforce sanctions from the United States or other foreign agencies “on Nicaraguan soil.”
The Office of the Secretary General of the Organization of American States condemned the proposed constitutional reforms on Wednesday.
“The ‘reform document’ is illegitimate in form and content, it merely constitutes a deviant form of institutionalization of the marriage dictatorship in the Central American country and is a definitive attack on the democratic constitutional state,” the report said in a statement.
The proposals come amid the Ortega government’s continued crackdown since massive social protests in 2018 that the government violently suppressed.
Nicaragua’s government has imprisoned and then exiled opponents, religious leaders, journalists and more, stripping hundreds of their Nicaraguan citizenship and assets. Since 2018, it has closed more than 5,000 organizations, largely religious, and forced thousands to flee the country.
Dissident groups, including the Nicaraguan University Alliance, quickly protested the measures, calling them an extension of that oppression.
“They internalize nepotism and repression, destroying the rule of law. Democracy is facing its greatest threat,” the organization wrote on the social media platform X on Wednesday.
Manuel Orozco, director of the migration, remittances and development program at the Inter-American Dialogue, called Ortega’s proposed reforms “nothing but a rubber formalization of a decision to guarantee the presidential succession” for Murillo and their family. Ortega previously called Murillo his co-president in recent years.
While the rejection of international sanctions would not have an immediate impact, Orozco said it could put the country at “high financial risk” and at risk of further punishment from the US Treasury Department.
Orozco said constitutional reform of the presidency is part of a long-term plan for the government to stay in power, and was put forward on Wednesday as a way to avoid provoking the incoming administration of new US President Donald Trump.
The analyst said Trump may not prioritize a crackdown on democratic freedoms in countries like Nicaragua, but he is also unlikely to “tolerate provocations.”
“The procedure, apart from circumventing the will of the people, the rule of law, creates the opportunity to give Ortega additional time to remain in power,” Orozco said. Ortega was re-elected for a fourth consecutive five-year term in November 2021.
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