Nicaragua, together with Venezuela and Cuba, represent a constant challenge for the international community and especially for democratic actors in Latin America. International attention is currently focused on Venezuela and the events that may be triggered by Nicolás Maduro’s attempt to remain in power, even though on July 28, 2024, he lost the presidential elections to Edmundo González Urrutia.
On January 10, 2025, the same day on which President-elect Edmundo González is due to take office in Venezuela, in Nicaragua the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo will materialize one of the greatest legal and political aberrations in the history of the country: it will approve a reform to the Constitution which means the installation of a political regime with a totalitarian State model, which also represents a fatal setback in terms of the fundamental rights of the citizens.
The implications of these alleged partial reforms that have almost totally transformed the constitution, mark a turning point in the political process of Nicaragua and should serve as an alarm for the international community, especially for the countries of Latin America, because they constitute the foundation of a new family dynasty in the region. This is a bad example for those who, from their positions of power, promote authoritarian projects in the region, especially in Central America, still afflicted by authoritarian governments and leaders.

This is an event of major importance that cannot go unnoticed by the democratic actors of the international community, because it sets a dangerous precedent for all of Latin America and the rest of the world.
We will continue adding efforts
The Nicaraguan Democratic Concertation (CDN) makes a strong call to the international community, governments and democratic actors in the hemisphere, Europe and other regions of the world, to keep Nicaragua among their priorities for action during 2025 and to continue accompanying Nicaraguan organizations and citizens in their demand for democracy, justice and freedom.
In that sense, we trust that the administration of Donald Trump, who will assume the presidency of the United States on January 20, will continue to support the pressure actions against the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship.

In addition, we hope that the governments of the countries of Europe will join in pushing for coordinated actions against the dictatorship in Nicaragua, that the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) will not continue to provide funds that contribute to sustaining the Ortega Murillo regime and that the international human rights organizations will continue to firmly accompany the denunciations and search for justice for the victims of the grave human rights violations committed by the Ortega-Murillo regime.
To our Venezuelan brothers and sisters, we reiterate our solidarity and hope that soon the doors of a democratic and free future will open for their country and that this will also happen in Nicaragua.
While this happens, the CDN will continue to join efforts with other Nicaraguan actors to achieve the desired transition to democracy and the reestablishment of citizen rights and freedoms. One of the tasks that will remain a priority is international advocacy work in search of justice for the victims and to ensure that those responsible for the crimes do not go unpunished. The challenges are great, but the commitment to the freedom of Nicaragua is greater.
The new Constitution of the Ortega Murillo family against trade and investment

The Ortega Murillo dictatorship will endorse in the next few days a new Constitution of totalitarian nature under a power centralized in a binary presidency that assures them the dynastic succession, subordinates the previous powers of the State and transforms them into organs under their coordination. This under the concept of a supposed direct democracy, which departs from the republican and democratic model, traditional in Latin America.
Nicaragua is no longer a democratic and social State under the rule of law committed to the preeminence of human rights, the new Constitution proclaims it as a revolutionary State. By eliminating the principle of the rule of law, it is transformed into a system where authoritarianism, arbitrariness and corruption will prevail without any respect for legal norms, without checks and balances, and where laws are applied for the benefit of the regime.
The subordination of the former branches of government to the presidency is serious for businessmen and investors, since the judicial system will not guarantee trials according to the law in the solution of controversies.
With a State model that legalized totalitarianism and arbitrariness, there can be no confidence in doing business, because the ability to anticipate future results has disappeared. Without the rule of law, it is impossible to guarantee predictability in business, which in order to function properly needs clear, stable, fair and impartially applied rules and without these, it can only generate the uncertainty of a revolutionary State such as the one proclaimed in the new Constitution.

The Change to Chapter 6
Chapter 6 of the new Magna Carta, which refers to the economy, does not include the fundamental concepts and guarantees for the respect of private property and an appropriate business climate. Neither does it include the model of alliance, dialogue and consensus, which existed between the Government and businessmen, nor any other reference to the private sector.
They also removed the responsibility to protect and encourage forms of private business ownership and economic management, the promotion and protection of healthy competition among economic agents, references to free enterprise and the free market, and the possibility of promoting public-private projects, whose objective was to facilitate investments for the improvement and development of infrastructure.
They eliminated the right of workers and the private productive sectors to participate in the elaboration, execution and control of economic plans, used with the objective of improving productivity. Also, the guarantees of the different forms of property, including private property, and the equality of rights and prerogatives thereof, and the equality of companies before the law and the economic policies of the State.
In matters of labor law, the new Constitution is, as with all human rights, totally regressive in the protection and guarantee of the same. It leaves workers unequal and defenseless compared to their peers in other countries.

Does not promote an adequate business climate
It does not prohibit wage discrimination for political, religious, social, gender or any other reason. Nor does it establish a link between salary and human dignity to guarantee adequate welfare, nor does it guarantee job stability, which was an acquired right. This does not comply with the provisions of Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Conventions 100 and 111 of the International Labor Organization (ILO).
In theory, it maintains freedom of association but does not include the provision that no worker is obliged to belong to certain unions, nor to resign from the one to which he/she belongs. This would protect workers from a regime that forces them to join official unions and restricts rights and opportunities to those who do not comply with this imposition.
By eliminating important labor principles from the Constitution, Law 516, the Acquired Labor Rights Law, is left without support, even though it was enacted in a package of laws necessary to be part of the Free Trade Agreement between the Dominican Republic, Central America and the United States, known as DR-Cafta.
For the Nicaraguan Democratic Concertation (CDN), the new Constitution does not foster a healthy and sustainable business environment, because it turned Nicaragua into a country where the rules are uncertain and unevenly applied, as the only interest of the Ortega Murillo dictatorship is the security and stability of his regime, through total control of society and business and is willing to sacrifice trade and investment to stay in power.