In recent months, signs of a dynastic succession have intensified in Nicaragua. Six years after the socio-political crisis emerged in 2018, the dictatorial regime headed by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, his wife and vice president, shows clear signs of exhaustion. Not only because of their ages, they are also incapable of offering a proposal for the future of the country. The mass protests that spread throughout 2018 and 2019, in addition to the high levels of electoral abstention in the 2021 presidential elections, showed that the population is also exhausted. Discontent persists and has deepened. Even so, the Ortega-Murillos insist on remaining in power and for that they have opted for the family.
One of the signs is the accelerated restructuring of the power circles, removing numerous officials and close collaborators who are no longer trusted. The changes have generated great nervousness among those who, until now, were considered close and “loyal.” The group of those ousted is already significant, and several have been imprisoned. The purges show that the power structure is mutating so that the person chosen as successor maintains control over the country and can sustain authoritarian continuity. The regime is radicalizing the police state over the rest of the Nicaraguan population. It has also adopted forms of transnational persecution for those who are abroad in order to ensure control and carry out the dynastic succession.
A dictatorial family project
Ortega has spent seventeen consecutive years as President of Nicaragua. In 2007, when he returned to office, he was already working on establishing his authoritarian project. From the beginning, he was determined to lay the foundations of the dictatorial regime. But, unlike other autocratic regimes in Latin America, where the succession fell to people loyal to the leaders, as in Cuba and Venezuela, in Nicaragua it took on the characteristics of a dynastic succession. The other members of the family clan are preparing to continue the dictatorship.
First in line to the throne is Rosario Murillo, Ortega’s wife, vice president and sole spokesperson for the regime. Murillo gained power as a result of her support for Ortega when her daughter Zoilamérica reported in 1998 that he had abused her since she was a child. Once Ortega took office, Murillo’s power increased rapidly, taking control of the government apparatus and the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).
In 2016, during the FSLN congress, Ortega announced Murillo’s candidacy for vice president in that year’s elections. The doubts that existed regarding the installation of a new dynasty were cleared up. Of course, Murillo rose to occupy the position in a fraudulent electoral process .
The axis of power revolves around Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, but as time has progressed and the sociopolitical crisis has deepened and prolonged, Murillo has risen above the entire structure. Even above people in whom Ortega had the highest personal confidence and the so-called “historical militancy” made up of former guerrillas who fought against the Somoza dictatorship and have remained under the wing of the FSLN. One of the most recent cases is that of Humberto Ortega, Daniel’s brother, a retired general and the first commander in chief of the Army. Humberto dared to publicly criticize the dynastic succession. That was enough to keep him incommunicado and under house arrest for several months until his death last September.
The Murillo circle
Murillo has built up a circle of loyal people within the party and the government apparatus. Most of them are relatively young, compromised by bribes. She is known for the iron control she exercises over all state institutions. She uses hate speech and threats to refer to those she considers to be opponents. She has a humiliating treatment of her own children and is obsessed with esoteric matters.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Ortega-Murillo family performs key public functions without official appointments. For example, they lead official delegations on visits abroad. Laureano Ortega Murillo has acquired a very active public profile in recent years because he has been tasked with establishing collaboration agreements with Russia and China. He also has been tasked with establishing collaboration agreements with some countries in the Middle East. He usually heads official delegations that visit Russia and China.
Camila Ortega Murillo is Rosario’s personal assistant and coordinator of the National Commission for Creative Economy. On one occasion, Ortega gave her full powers to sign a memorandum of understanding on cultural issues with China. The other children of the presidential couple are in charge of managing the most important pro-government media outlets and companies of the Ortega-Murillo economic group. The authoritarian and party-based political project was transformed into one of a family nature and with sultanic features.
Exhaustion of the model
Rosario Murillo is first in line to succeed her. But it is clear that other members of the family are already preparing for what appears to be a long-term authoritarian political project. But this succession faces several problems. One of them is that it does not enjoy support or legitimacy among the population. On the contrary, discontent has deepened and spread even among her own supporters.
The possibility of continuity of the project is compromised because the model has already been exhausted. It is not capable of offering future possibilities even to its own supporters. That is why they have opted for authoritarian radicalization along four lines. One is the restructuring of the power structure so that the successor can count on the complicity of his most loyal collaborators. Then, the reconfiguration of the system of repression, surveillance and control devices to contain the growing citizen discontent. Also, the creation of a legal framework that justifies their arbitrary actions. Finally, the destruction of the social capital of citizen organizations. According to them, it could incubate a new wave of protests like the one in 2018. The Ortega-Murillos are aware that 2026 is emerging as a key date to advance in their consolidation considering that the next presidential elections are scheduled for that year.
The succession and the upcoming elections could become a turning point, both for opening up an opportunity for democratic change and for strengthening the authoritarian project. The succession implies, in fact, a transition that the regime wants to take place completely under its control. But there is no guarantee of this. Especially since the possible “successor” is increasingly fuelling the animosity of its own followers. For the democratic opposition forces in Nicaragua, this scenario poses several challenges. First, preparing for this eventual moment and forming a legitimate interlocutor that can present a proposal for a democratic transition to Nicaraguan society and the international community.
*Text originally published on Diálogo Político (DP). Translation performed by artificial intelligence according to DP website.
Autor
Associate researcher at the Communication Research Center (CINCO) and the Institute for Strategic Studies and Public Policies (IEEPP) of Nicaragua.
