Proposed constitutional amendment
Nicaragua’s head of state Ortega wants to make his wife co-president
Daniel Ortega, the President of Nicaragua, plans to nominate his wife Rosario Murillo as the country’s co-president
The wife of Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega has ruled the country as Vice President since 2017. Now Rosario Murillo and her husband are planning to change the constitution: the couple wants to introduce the co-presidency.
Nicaragua’s authoritarian head of state Daniel Ortega wants his wife Rosario Murillo to be appointed co-president. The 71-year-old is already co-governing as Vice President, said Ortega in a televised speech on Friday night. “We will have to reform the constitution to introduce the principle of co-presidency.” The 77-year-old Ortega has been the head of state of the Central American country since 2007. He has been with Murillo for more than four decades.
Nicaragua deports political prisoners to the United States
The couple had met during the struggle of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) against Anastasio Somoza’s dictatorship in the late 1970s. Ortega was a member of the government junta and post-revolutionary president until he was voted out in 1990. He has now been head of state again for a decade and a half. His wife became Vice President in 2017. Nicaragua has about seven million inhabitants.
As Ortega further announced, it was his wife’s idea to deport 222 opposition prisoners to the United States on Thursday. She contacted the US embassy to arrange for the release and subsequent deportation. The group was then flown to Washington on a US government-provided plane.
The detainees are politicians, priests and student leaders, virtually all of whom are considered opponents of Nicaragua’s authoritarian long-term president. Spain has offered citizenship to political prisoners. This is the country’s response to the news that the opposition could be declared stateless, Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares told the Servimedia news agency on Friday. “We also offer this to all other prisoners who are currently in the same situation as the released ones,” added the minister.