Ortega celebrates 17 consecutive years in power with a view to a “family dynasty”

The president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortegacelebrates this Wednesday 17 consecutive years in power, the last 7 with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice president, in the least democratic country of Central America and where criticism or dissent is responded to with severe measures that even involve prison, exile or deprivation of nationality, as defense organizations have reported. human rights.

The Ortega regime “It is today the most bloodthirsty dictatorship in the Americas,” Nicaraguan Javier Meléndez, a strong critic of the Sandinista Executive and whom the authorities stripped of his nationality, told EFE.

Meléndez, a specialist in defense and security issues and director of the investigative organization Expediente Abierto, appreciated that “The crisis that began in 2018 made it abundantly clear that Ortega and his clan’s plan was to establish a family dynasty in complicity with big capital and parasitic political elites.”

“And without a doubt that is still the project. “We all know that his aspiration is that (his wife) Rosario Murillo and his son Laureano Ortega continue in power no matter what,” commented the denationalized opponent, who resides in the United States.

The family project

Last February, the Sandinista president proposed reforming the Constitution to name his wife as “co-president of the Republic”, although so far it has not sent any initiative in that regard to the National Assembly (Parliament), where the ruling party has a large majority.

Meanwhile, Laureano Ortega, presidential advisor for Investments, Trade and International Cooperation, has been delegated by his father as the person in charge of Nicaragua’s relations with China and Russia, which, along with Cuba, Iran and Venezuela, are its main political allies.

For Meléndez, this is a notable case in the modern history of Latin America, “because in the entire 20th century and so far into the 21st century there is not, apart from Nicaragua, a single case in which two families (Ortega and Murillo) wanted to impose their family dynasties no matter what. “This has been a tragedy for the Nicaraguan people.”

Ortega’s logic: “Power or death”

For the Nicaraguan and also denationalized political analyst Oscar René Vargas, Ortega’s logic is “power or death” and that for that reason he chose to crush the opposition after the popular revolt that broke out against his Government in April 2018 and that left hundreds dead and tens of thousands in exile.

“Repression was the path chosen for their survival and to avoid the loss of power. The logic implemented by Ortega-Murillo was to tear down everything, blow up everything, burn everything out of ambition and the desire to stay in power by any means.”Vargas, exiled in Costa Rica, argued in a writing.

The “logic of power or death” de Ortega, who returned to power in 2007, after coordinating a Government Junta from 1979 to 1985, and presiding over the country for the first time from 1985 to 1990, is known by the United States as a strategy of “exile, prison or death” to silence to the opposition and remain in power.

His critics accuse Ortega of wanting to amass, together with his family, all the power in his hands, like the Castro brothers, his mentors, in Cuba, and they cite a phrase that the former “commander of the Sandinista revolution” said in his lifetime. ” Tomas Borge.

“Anything can happen here (in Nicaragua), unless the Sandinista Front loses power (…). I told Daniel Ortega: we can pay any price, no matter what they say, the only thing we cannot lose is power, and let’s do what we have to do.”said Borge.

What will be Ortega’s legacy?

Ortega, a former Marxist guerrilla, confessedly nostalgic for the ‘Cold War’, and who leads the most impoverished country in Central America and the third poorest in America, returned to power in 2007 with a 38% of the votes, which was enough given the division of the liberal and conservative forces.

At this point in his life, Ortega, 78, is looking for “die in his law, believing that he is a notable leader, a world revolutionary leader,” said Meléndez, for whom the Sandinista leader is “an elderly criminal, decrepit, internationally isolated and hated by the Nicaraguan people.”

“When he finally dies we will look back and see that his legacy was one of war, repression, corruption, violations of the most fundamental rights that are taken for granted in most countries in the Western Hemisphere,” argument.

According to different sectors, including the Nicaraguan Episcopate, with which he maintains strong tensions, the Sandinista leader supports the perpetuation of the exercise of power, its concentration in a few – mainly family members -, social control through party organizations and the militarization of the State.