Nicaragua: Government

Principal Government Officials

Chief of State: President Jose Daniel Ortega Saavedra
Head of Government: President Jose Daniel Ortega Saavedra

Nicaragua is a constitutional democracy with executive, legislative, judicial, and electoral branches of government. In 1995, the executive and legislative branches negotiated a reform of the 1987 Sandinista constitution, which gave extensive new powers and independence to the legislature--the National Assembly--including permitting the Assembly to override a presidential veto with a simple majority vote and eliminating the president's ability to pocket-veto a bill.

Nicaragua's constitution guarantees freedom of speech, peaceful assembly and association, religion, and movement within the country, as well as foreign travel, emigration, and repatriation. In the run-up to the November 2008 municipal elections the government made attempts to limit some of these rights, including limiting free and open discussion in the media and academia, and peaceful assembly. The constitution prohibits discrimination based on birth, nationality, political belief, race, gender, language, religion, opinion, national origin, and economic or social condition. All public and private sector workers, except the military, public safety workers, and police, are entitled to form and join unions of their own choosing. Most of Nicaragua’s labor force is involved in the informal service and agricultural sectors and is not unionized. However, the formal manufacturing and government/public sectors are heavily unionized. About 65% of unions are affiliated with the Sandinistas. Workers have the right to strike. Collective bargaining is becoming more common in the private sector.

The president and the members of the unicameral National Assembly are elected to concurrent 5-year terms. The National Assembly consists of 92 total deputies (90 elected from party lists drawn at the regional and national levels, plus the outgoing president and the second-place finisher in the most recent presidential election).

The Supreme Court supervises the functioning of the still largely ineffective, often partisan, and overburdened judicial system. In 2000, the Ortega-Aleman pact orchestrated expansion of the Supreme Court from 12 to 16 justices. The National Assembly elects Supreme Court justices to staggered 5-year terms. Led by a council of seven magistrates, the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) is the co-equal branch of government responsible for organizing and conducting elections, plebiscites, and referendums. The National Assembly elects the CSE magistrates and their alternates to 5-year terms. A 2000 constitutional amendment expanded the number of CSE magistrates from five to seven and gave the PLC and the FSLN a freer hand to name party activists to the Council, prompting allegations that both parties were politicizing electoral institutions and processes and excluding smaller political parties.

The constitution provides the Assembly with sole power to elect Supreme Court judges, CSE magistrates, and other national level public officials. However, in January 2010 President Ortega issued a decree that indefinitely extended the terms of these incumbent officials. As a result, as of May 2010 about two dozen of these officials remained in their positions despite the fact that their terms had expired, including several Supreme Court judges. After Liberal judges boycotted the Supreme Court for several months, Ortega replaced them in August 2010 with five Sandinista and two Liberal justices.

Political Parties
The 2006 national elections resulted in the following distribution of the 92 seats in the National Assembly (installed January 9, 2007): FSLN--38; PLC--25; ALN--24; MRS--5. The political parties have since reorganized and the makeup of the Assembly is now FSLN--38; PLC--21; BDN--12; ALN--7; MRS--4; BUN-6, and Independent--4.

FOREIGN RELATIONS
Nicaragua traditionally pursues an independent foreign policy. Since returning to power in 2007, Daniel Ortega has sought to build closer ties with Iran, Russia, and the ALBA states, especially Venezuela. Immediately after his inauguration Ortega formally joined ALBA. In 2008, Ortega made Nicaragua the second country to grant diplomatic recognition to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the breakaway “independent republics” of Georgia.

Nicaragua submitted three territorial disputes--one with Honduras, one with Costa Rica, and the other with Colombia--to the International Court at The Hague for resolution. The dispute with Honduras was resolved by The Hague in October 2007, and President Ortega and Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales met on October 8, 2007 to recognize the finality of the decision. Also in 2007, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador reached an agreement on fishing rights in the Gulf of Fonseca, though the actual border demarcation remains unresolved, by mutual agreement. In December 2007, The Hague issued an interim decision on the Colombia-Nicaragua dispute that granted sovereignty of the San Andres archipelago to Colombia, but urged both parties to work toward a mutually satisfactory resolution regarding the surrounding waters.

Costa Rica and Nicaragua have long-disputed issues related to their boundary. An 1858 treaty fixed the boundary on the river’s southern bank, and a subsequent arbitration finding validated that treaty. A 2009 International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision also accepted the river’s southern bank as the boundary. In October 2010, Costa Rica accused Nicaraguan troops of invading Costa Rican territory and protested Nicaragua’s dredging operations in the San Juan River, claiming that the dredging was causing irreparable environmental damage. In a provisional ruling, the ICJ allowed dredging operations to continue but asked that both parties remove security forces from the disputed territory. A final ruling could take several years.

At the 1994 Summit of the Americas, Nicaragua joined six Central American neighbors in signing the Alliance for Sustainable Development, known as the Conjunta Centroamerica-USA, or CONCAUSA, to promote sustainable economic development in the region.

Nicaragua belongs to the United Nations and several specialized and related agencies, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Trade Organization (WTO), UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), World Health Organization (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Labor Organization (ILO), and UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC). Nicaragua also is a member of the Organization of American States (OAS), the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the Central American Armed Forces Conference (CFAC), the Non-aligned Movement (NAM), the International Atomic Energy Commission (IAEA), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI).

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