“The president comes out to invent that there is a conspiracy because he does not have the lucidity nor the audacity to admit that the people are claiming autonomy, without external political leadership. For his inability to accept mistakes, for that fundamentalism in the exercise of power, he believes that there must always be an external conspiracy, ignoring the intelligence that the people have to know how to face the moments of history that have touched us.”
This was how Zoilamérica Ortega Murillo, the stepdaughter of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and daughter of Vice-president Rosario Murillo, when consulted by La Nación about the demonstrations in Nicaragua and the reaction of the Government.
Ortega, who lives in self-exile in Costa Rica since 2013, affirms that “civil organizations and the people have tried to make their claims through appropriate means, to avoid confrontation”.
“The repression that Nicaragua lives today only expresses the chaos of those who govern”Zoilamérica Ortega Murillo
The Nicaraguan president’s stepdaughter was clear that this, the violence of last several days, is a sign that there is no other way to express discontent and the need to have a real change in Nicaragua.
She added that the president’s speech is an insult to the historical memory of a people that cannot forget the two wars that they lived in the last decades. “If the people resort to going out on the streets, it’s because there’s a reason,” Ortega said.
Nicaraguans have taken to the street since Wednesday due to reforms that the Daniel Ortega government to the state social security, which increases contributions by workers and employers and reduces benefits.
In the opinion of Zoilamérica Ortega, it is extremely curious that the image her parents have been selling to the world, supposedly successful in a series of economic indicators, from one day to the next have to justify them because of the global crisis and argue that they are experiencing the same problems as social security systems in other countries.
“There is an admission that, for some time now, the Nicaraguan economy has been part of that lie that they have tried to sell,” said the Nicaraguan president’s stepdaughter.
She also considers that the internal corruption in the different institutions of the government of Daniel Ortega has worsened, after the withdrawal of Venezuelan aid.
“The Venezuelan aid had been the petty cash to sustain all populist actions, all social financing, which masked the government of Daniel Ortega as a government of the poor,” Ortega explained. “By losing this funding and no longer having this correlation of forces, they began to make use of internal resources, to the point that for them they are admitting that they have a serious problem and should try to avoid the bankruptcy of social security.”
Zoilamérica Ortega Murillo, 50, believes that the protests that exploded in Nicaragua in recent days are a sign of the erosion of the country, but also of the fact that the president and his government “can no longer control the corruption within their own institutions”.
“Beyond the fact that they themselves have access to public resources for their own purposes, there are also symptoms of bullying and chaos within the government. They threaten, intimidate, steal each other, “said the daughter of Rosario Murillo.
Ortega affirms that the day is not far away for a significant change in the politics of Daniel Ortega’s regime. “There will come the pronouncement of many sectors that will start to emerge from fear (…),” said Ortega.
She, the stepdaughter of Daniel Ortega, believes that Nicaragua will not wait 45 years to overthrow another dictatorship, as happened with the Somocista (pro-Anastasio Somoza).
Article originally appeared on QCostarica, and reposted here with permission. Read the original.
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