MADRID 22 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Nicaraguan Assembly, controlled by the ruling party, unanimously approved this Friday a constitutional reform presented by President Daniel Ortega that grants him more powers and allows him to extend the presidential term for another year.
The law, which authorizes him to assume more powers by becoming the ultimate coordinator of the legislative and judicial powers, will be ratified again in January as part of a second legislature, according to the newspaper ‘La Prensa’.
The measure affects more than a hundred articles of the Magna Carta and, for example, establishes the flag of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) as an official symbol of Nicaragua, while also formalizing his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo , as “co-president”.
The secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, rejected and repudiated the initiative to reform the Constitution the day before, alleging that Ortega seeks to increase his absolute control of the State and perpetuate himself in power.
“It merely constitutes an aberrant form of institutionalization of the matrimonial dictatorship in the Central American country and is a definitive attack on the democratic rule of law,” he said in a statement sent by his office.
Nicaragua is called to the polls again in November 2026. The Ortega Government has promoted a violent campaign of persecution of the opposition, depriving dissidents of their nationality. In addition, it has expelled ambassadors from the country and closed thousands of national and international NGOs, as well as media and religious organizations.