The president of the National Assembly (Parliament) of Nicaragua, the Sandinista Gustavo Porras, proposed to declare via Law a national holiday on May 30 on the occasion of Nicaraguan Mother’s Day, with which the country would have 10 holidays a year, reported this Saturday the Legislative Power.
In the law initiative – which will be discussed in plenary next week where the ruling party is an absolute majority – the Sandinista deputy proposed reforming article 66 of the Labor Code to include May 30 in the list of national holidays.
“The following are mandatory national holidays with the right to rest and salary: January 1st, Holy Thursday and Good Friday, May 1st and 30th, July 19th, September 14th and 15th, December 8th and 25th”, to total 10 days in the year, according to the proposal.
In his explanatory memorandum, Porras put as background that the National Reconstruction Governing Board declared, through a decree on June 7, 1980, that May 30 of each year is Mother’s Day in Nicaragua.
However, according to the Academy of Geography and History of Nicaragua, Nicaraguan Mother’s Day was legally instituted in 1940 during the government of dictator Anastasio Somoza García, setting the date on May 30 of each year.
Related news: Dictatorship intends to “erase from memory” the massacre of May 30 by declaring it a national holiday, say victims
On November 8, 1976, legislators modified the date of celebration of Mother’s Day from May 30 to the last Sunday of that month, in order, according to that decree, “that every child can easily meet on that day with his mother, a case that is currently not possible when May 30 falls on a work day and his mother lives in a place other than his son’s place of work.”
That decree entered into force on March 26, 1977, under the government of dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, son of Somoza García, two years before being overthrown by the Sandinistas.
On June 7, 1980, the then National Reconstruction Government Board repealed that decree and restored the original date of May 30, according to decree number 430 of May 24, 1980, published in the Official Gazette on May 7. June 1980, according to the Academy of Geography and History of Nicaragua.
FROM HOLIDAY TO HOLIDAY
In his initiative, the president of Parliament stressed that “Nicaraguan mothers are worthy, selfless and fighters, so it is necessary to take one more step to highlight the contribution that mothers give to the family, the community and the society every day. society”.
Until now, the Nicaraguan authorities have used to give half of the day on May 30, when it is a regular work day, as vacation time.
Related news: Three years after the massacre of May 30 and the mothers continue to demand justice, but without giving up
In the case of the private company, workers have permission to be absent as long as they reach a prior agreement with their employers.
On May 30, 2018, in the context of the sociopolitical crisis that Nicaragua has been experiencing for four years, a massive opposition march in Managua ended in blood just after President Daniel Ortega declared in a speech before his followers that “Nicaragua It belongs to all of us and we all stay here”.
That fateful day, 15 Nicaraguans lost their lives and another 199 were injured on the bloodiest Mother’s Day in Nicaragua, and since then the opposition, which has described it as a “massacre”, has commemorated it with vigils, attending masses or with messages demanding justice.
