“She’s not the vice president; she’s the co-resident,” he said of Nicaraguan Rosario Murillo. But he said not really knowing how accurate his prophecy would be. For it was not Daniel Ortega who uttered those words in October 2021, but Agustín Jarquín in 2016, during the electoral campaign that elevated Murillo to the second highest office in the country.
Five years later, President Ortega came to confirm it: on October 25, 2021, Comrade Rosario is officially –but not legally– co-resident. Some media, both Nicaraguan and international, were quick to denounce Daniel Ortega’s coup d’état. The denunciation was based on an undeniable fact: there is something that does not sound right when a president invents institutions of the highest political order outside the Constitution.
But “something doesn’t sound right” is not enough. This is what, in general, the opinion columns published in the last few days were limited. What is really behind this ad? What does this co-chair mean and how does it differ from the vice-chair?
The co-chair would be an update of the monarchic association with the throne. In other words, the monarch gradually incorporates his heir into the work of royalty. But power ultimately remains in the hands of the holder, who can modulate these delegations and, in principle, the heir must respect his decisions. In other words, the asymmetry of power, both formal and real, is maintained in favor of the incumbent.
Throne membership may or may not be institutionalized. For example, in Spain, during the period 2009-2014, King Juan Carlos increasingly incorporated Felipe into the Crown’s responsibilities. This happened without a formal institution called “Association to the Throne”, but with the utmost respect for formal institutions. Here is a first key: the behavior of political actors can allow an informal institution to reinforce formal institutions. Or the opposite: as we see in Nicaragua, an informal institution can mean the liquidation of formal institutions.
The example of Spain is particularly useful for comparing and understanding because it comes from the Spanish-speaking world and the recent past. In other words, it is relatively close to the Nicaraguan case. But the invention is actually very old: we can trace the association all the way to the throne as far back as Ancient Greece. So, in an institutional sense, Ortega is not inventing anything. The problem is that he invents something on a meta-institutional level.
Membership to the throne in presidential systems already existed: it is called the vice-presidency. Ortega is therefore reinventing an existing figure; but its method of creation is informal. Even more serious, instead of replacing the existing figure, he puts it on the side, both coexisting. Worse still, the figure created by Ortega has no constitutional basis; it does not result from an agreement between political forces representing the entire nation; it does not originate in a debate in which the advantages and disadvantages of the new post are weighed up. Ultimately, we can say that it has neither the slightest democratic legitimacy nor the slightest anchoring in the rule of law.
Now, if Ortega decided to take that step, there’s probably a goal. So let’s try to find in the association to the throne the logic behind this type of mechanism. It used to be used for two purposes: for the heir to become familiar with the tasks of the Crown and for the population (today we would say the citizens) to know the future king. That is, for him to gain legitimacy. Rosario Murillo is now the vice president and wife of the president; therefore, she is likely to know the Executive’s tasks well.
Regarding the second objective, Ortega himself declared during the speech in which he named his co-president: “Every day she is communicating with our people, making known everything that is being done for the benefit of Nicaraguan families.” It can be deduced that the people know her well. So, if she has already mastered the tasks of government and the citizens already know her, what is the use of making her co-president. Perhaps the co-chair is something substantially new and we are not realizing it?
Although Ortega has insinuated the opposite, it is evident that this co-presidency is not situated between two equals. In the face of dissent, it is the president who has the last word. In other words: the co-chair is a position that coexists between the executive and the president; who has less formal and real power than the president; who performs tasks delegated by the president; and whose power and executive capacity will be directly proportionate to the president’s trust in him.
What is the vice presidency? It is a position that coexists in the Executive with the President; who has less formal and real power than the President; who performs tasks delegated by the president; and whose executive power and capacity will be directly proportional to the president’s confidence in her.
After Cristina Fernández’s invention in Argentina of the vice-president with more real power than the presidency, perhaps we cannot take it for granted that the president always has more power than the vice-president. But this does not seem to be the case in Nicaragua. They don’t even seem to have the same power: Ortega clearly dominates. So let’s go ahead with the analysis.
Can we then say that the co-chair and the vice-chair are the same thing? Yes and no. From the above two paragraphs we can see what they have in common, which is almost everything. But there is a radical difference between them: while the vice-presidency is a real cabinet, the co-chair is virtual. For example, imagine that Ortega wants to remove the vice president: he cannot. The Constitution does not provide for this possibility. Imagine, on the other hand, that he wants to remove the co-chair: done! Desiring it, announcing it and materializing it are the same thing.
Since the position does not formally exist, it cannot be assigned a budget, an office, a team. But in Murillo’s specific case, the misunderstanding is subtle, since vice president and co-president coincide in the same person. Thus, it can be said that certain functions, titles or budgets were assigned to the co-chair, when in reality they were assigned to the vice. This coincidence in the same person partially hides the hoax – at least from the eyes of those who want to be deceived.
As always, in politics we must think about the future; what would happen if what is now exceptional were to become the norm. So what if the tradition of naming a co-chair was established, but tomorrow there was a vice-chair and a co-chair that don’t coincide in the same person?
One fact becomes clear: Ortega’s maneuver liquidates the vice-presidency and institutions in general. In other words: the same person, with the same functions, has little political value if he only holds the title of vice-president; that is why a most important one must be created for him: the co-chair. And it also comes to say: the office of vice president, supported by the Constitution, history and the popular vote, has less value than a position magically invented by the word of the president.
Capetian France added a second mechanism to membership of the throne: early consecration, whereby the crowned heir was soon given the title of “junior rex.” Given the Nicaraguan regime’s reminiscences of an absolute monarchy, Ortega could have been more generous with his partner: more than a co-resident, Rosario Murillo deserves the investiture of “junior regina”.
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