Three lawyers and human rights defenders called Daniel Ortega’s proposal to establish a “co-presidency” in Nicaragua “absurd”, “illegal”, “unconstitutional”, “illegitimate” and “political atrocity”.
During his monologue this Thursday, February 9in which he took the opportunity to try to justify before his bases the decision of banish 222 political prisoners, which he said was a proposal from his wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo, Ortega presented her first as vice president, and then as “co-president.” “I rectify: ‘co-president’ of the Republic. Not really! That’s right: ‘co-president’ of the Republic, ”she reiterated. It was the second time in a public act that he referred to her with that non-existent title.
Immediately afterwards, he asserted that “in the Constitution we will have to make some reforms” and addressed the president of the National Assembly, deputy Gustavo Porras, who was accompanying him at the meeting. “We will have to make some reforms so that the principle of ‘co-chairmanship’ is established,” he insisted.
“The ‘co-presidency’ thing is another political atrocity, typical of tyrannies,” said lawyer Gonzalo Carrión, a member of the ‘Nicaragua, Nunca Más’ Human Rights Collective. “In the ‘co-presidency’ we find an absurdity, illogical from the constitutional point of view, because when the population exercises a vote – and they were not elected – the people vote for a candidate for president and a candidate for vice-president,” he explained.
He recalled that in Nicaragua citizens are called upon to elect a president and a vice president, for which reason he considers Ortega’s proposal “a legal and even political atrocity” that “has neither head nor tail.” The Assembly will be able to make the reform, but that would be an unconstitutional atrocity, which violates the Law and the organization of the State, ”he insisted.
The former deputy and also a lawyer, Eliseo Núñez, recalled that “Ortega has never respected the laws. Nicaragua is a republican country led by a president or president. I don’t remember seeing the ‘co-president’ thing in another part of the world. It goes against the logic of the Executive Power, which is organized vertically to administer, with a very clear hierarchy, but since he does not like to work, it seems good to him that there is a ‘co-president’ so that she is the one who works, ”he reasoned. .
In the event that such an invention were legalized in the country, Núñez imagined a situation in which there are two ‘co-presidents’ of a Coalition. Those hypothetical rulers “would have a major problem from the point of view of who has more functions,” he theorized.
Also a human rights defender, Jhoswel Martínez, president of the Intercultural Association for Human Rights (Asidehu), based in Costa Rica, considered it “an unconstitutional, illegitimate and totally out of place act”, which only the Sandinistas would find practical to implement “because it would eliminate the need to comply with the protocol for the transition of power after the death of a president”, if such a thing happened, for example, during the exercise of the current presidential term, which ends in January 2027.
More problems than solutions
When asked for legal or historical references, Carrión says that “perhaps in primitive times, when we were looking for how to light a fire with two stones, or some hereditary monarchy,” he speculated, while Núñez says that “the closest thing was the reign of Fernando de Aragón and Isabel de Castilla (beginning of the 16th century), who represented two kingdoms”, or the Roman triumvirate made up of Pompey, Julio Cesar and Marco Licinio Crassus, between 60 and 53 BC.
“It would be more practical to have a prime minister,” says Núñez, adding after reading between the lines that Ortega “is also saying that he is not willing to let her be president while he lives, and stay behind watching her pull the strings of power. This ‘co-presidency’ proposal is a way out of the conflict with his wife, ”he asserts.
Martínez warns that this can lead to a serious problem, since “two people cannot have the same powers to exercise power. There would be a clash of interests, since both would be leaders of the Army and the Police, and in case there are differences, both will be able to order these entities to eliminate their rivals, without having to ask the other for permission.
Carrión warns that if Porras complies with the order as it was given, “’co-president’ Murillo could tell ‘co-president’ Ortega ‘I command the same as you.’ “It would be relaxing. It is not constitutional, it is not legal, or legitimate, or anything. It is a violation of the Law, ”he assessed.
