MEXICO CITY (AP) — Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega on Wednesday proposed a constitutional reform that would officially make him and his wife, current Vice President Rosario Murillo, “copresidents” of the Central American nation.
While the initiative has to pass through the country’s legislature, Ortega and Murillo’s Sandinista party control the congress and all government institutions, so it is likely to be approved.
The proposal also looks to expand the presidential term to six years from five. Ortega put forward another bill Wednesday that would make it illegal for anyone to enforce sanctions from the United States or other foreign bodies “within Nicaraguan territory.”
The Organization of American States general secretary’s office condemned the proposed constitutional reforms Wednesday.
“The ‘reform’ document is illegitimate in form and content, 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,” it said in a statement.
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