Who is Rosario Murillo, the vice president and wife of Daniel Ortega who for many would hold real power in Nicaragua

(CNN) – It is difficult to think of Daniel Ortega, president of Nicaragua, without invoking the figure of Rosario Murillo, his wife, a member of the Sandinista militancy, a government spokesperson and since 2016 also the country’s vice president.

Ortega has governed Nicaragua since 2007, when he returned to the presidency after winning the elections (he had already held the position between 1985 and 1990). He was reelected twice more, after a constitutional reform that eliminated the limits on reelection for successive terms in Nicaragua, and now he is seeking a new victory in the November elections, always accompanied by Murillo.

But the road to the next elections has been marked by the arrests of the main opposition leaders – who are accused of alleged crimes such as money laundering and carrying out acts against sovereignty – which has cast doubt on the legitimacy of the process, and the critical reaction of international organizations.

All of the detainees, who include presidential candidates, businessmen and activists, have rejected the charges against them. International organizations, including the OAS and the UN, have also condemned the arrests and called for the release of opponents.

Spokesperson and Vice President

So far, Ortega has been silent on the arrests. But Vice President Murillo, “la Chayo” -as she is known-, has come out to defend her government.

“In how many countries and in how many organizations have we seen how people who run over towns, looting, stealing, are taken to justice,” he said at the beginning of June in a speech in reference to the first arrests. “That is so, in all parts of the world, and in all organizations and institutions, we have learned how those who have committed acts of corruption are judged and separated, and Nicaragua cannot be an exception.”

The situation is also marked by the political crisis that has affected the country since 2018, when an attempt by the government to increase labor contributions led to a wave of protests – marked by violent repression – and instability in the Central American country.

Who, then, is Rosario Murillo, the visible face of the Nicaraguan government and for many the power behind the presidency?

Beginning of his militancy and arrival to the government

Rosario Murillo Zambrana was born on June 22, 1951 in Managua, capital of Nicaragua.

Her history was always linked to the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN): she is the great-niece of Augusto César Sandino, a Nicaraguan revolutionary from the early 20th century from whom the party derives its name. en joined the ranks of this political force in 1969.

Due to his militancy, he had to go into exile in Costa Rica in 1977, where he met Ortega. They married and had seven children (Murillo had already had three children at the time of meeting him).

In the 1970s, the FSLN began a campaign of armed struggle to overthrow the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, which it achieved in 1979. Ortega later won the elections in 1984 and governed until 1990, when he lost in the elections to Violeta Barrios.

Between 1984 and 1990 Murillo was a deputy in the National Assembly, but her figure began to grow only in 2007, when she became a spokesperson for the government after Ortega’s return to power, in a process that would lead her to be a candidate for vice president in 2016 and take over in 2017.

The presidential marriage

In 2018, amid protests, the Treasury Department The United States sanctioned Murillo for “seeking to dismantle democratic institutions and plunder the wealth of Venezuela in order to assert power.” In the statement, the US government called Murillo a “de facto co-president” of Nicaragua.

The Ortega government has rejected these sanctions, and other subsequent ones, assuring that they are external “interference.”

Edén Pastora, a former FSLN guerrilla commander, told CNN that “it is President Ortega who is in charge.” “Mrs. Murillo consults everything with her husband, although everyone thinks that she is the one in charge,” she said.

Murillo’s religiosity

Murillo usually invokes “Christian love” when referring to the actions of his government, interspersing also with ideas esoteric.

«I knew her in my youth and she was a Marxist, atheist and very anti-clerical. Then he had that conversion that he has never explained. I think it is pure political opportunism, because the Sandinistas concluded that the Nicaraguan people are very Christian, ”said Humberto Belli, former Nicaraguan Minister of Education during the presidency of Violeta Barrios (1990-1997).

Murillo and the covid-19

In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, Murillo was criticized for calling on people to participate in public events and for opposing measures such as social distancing and border closures.

The covid-19 has left at the moment a balance of almost 8,000 cases and 189 deaths according to the Johns Hopkins University based on official figures. Although independent organizations indicate that the real figure would be well above those numbers, and that the government would put pressure on doctors.