The mayor of Rivas, Wilfredo Lopez Hernandez“resigned” on the afternoon of this Monday, July 11, cornered by the leadership of his party during an extraordinary session, called that same day and which lasted only 30 minutes.
The Municipal Council also accepted the resignation of Deputy Mayor Esperanza Núñez. According to sources from the commune, López’s resignation dates from June 27 and Núñez’s last July 8. The session was held at 4:00 pm in the municipal auditorium, where both letters were read.
According to municipal sources, the councilors did not name a successor, but they did appoint Ana Birmania Rueda as the new deputy mayor, and Councilor Mario Rodríguez as the new secretary, whom they point to as the official who will be “the real power behind the throne.”
“All the councillors, even the opposition ones, voted in favor of electing Burma as the new deputy mayor. Only one of them said that he did not agree with the resignations, but as a comment, because they were not subject to any vote, ”they explained.
For the same sources, the FSLN put Rodríguez in the place “where he always wanted to be.” He disputed the municipal candidacy of the FSLN in the past with the current mayor, but at that moment he was “separated” and the leadership chose the now deposed mayor.
Rodríguez was the delegate of the Ministry of Natural Resources (MARENA) in Rivas, when the State ordered that they demolished a hotel in April 2015 for the opposition Milton Arcia in Ometepe. That decision was rejected at the time by the Superior Council of Private Enterprise.
The dismissal of Wilfredo López put an end to 14 years of municipal mandate and a trajectory of alignment with Ortega. The dismissed official is remembered for his support in 2014 for the works of the interoceanic canal, the failed project of the Ortega-Murillo Administration, which at the time the presidential couple sold as the initiative that would change the history of Nicaragua and would remove thousands from the poverty.
The double standard against FSLN corruption
Last February, a double FSLN corruption scandal in Rivas. One was by the administration of the former mayor of Rivas, intervened by the Municipal Development Institute (INIFOM).
On the other hand, the Police questioned Judge Ileana Pérez, in charge of the judicial district in that department, after they raided a property belonging to a former drug trafficker registered in the name of her brother, who worked as a judge in that same area of the country.
Pérez continued in his functions, his colleagues re-elected last June as president of the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice. The former mayor, on the other hand, was investigated by the authorities for missing $10,000. According to sources consulted by CONFIDENTIALthe former mayor even promised to replace the money, under pressure from the party leadership.
The “resignation” of both him and the deputy mayor was a matter of hours, since the administrative power was taken away from them last weekend, they added.
On Sunday, July 3, the former mayor was transferred to his house in the Los Robles neighborhood, after they had him in the Rivense police headquarters. Although the investigation was carried out by the Police, political operators such as the Minister of Agriculture, Isidro Rivera, the political secretary of the FSLN in Managua, Fidel Moreno Briones, and his counterpart in Rivas, Reymundo Membreño, participated.
The blow to the opposition mayors
Between July 2 and 4, the FSLN appropriated five opposition mayors, until then in the hands of mayors from the opposition Ciudadanos por La Libertad (CxL). INIFOM argued that the municipalities could not continue as they were, because that party was stripped of its legal status last year.
The dispossession of CxL’s status occurred months before the presidential voting, in the repressive escalation with which electoral competition was eliminated, fear was sown, which allowed the re-election of Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
Instead of the opponents, the Executive appointed Sandinista councilors. Dozens of police officers besieged the municipal headquarters before communicating the regime’s decision to the workers.
Victims of the regime’s coup were the mayors of Santa María de Pantasma, El Cuá and Sebastián de Yalí, in the department of Jinotega. He also Murra in Nueva Segovia and El Almendro in Río San Juan. With the usurped institutions, the FSLN controls 141 of 153 municipalities, that is to say, more than 90% of those that exist throughout Nicaragua.
