The current constitutional reforms promoted by the Ortega-Murillo regime represent the culmination of a deliberate process of constitutional dismantling and concentration of power. The path toward authoritarianism has been systematic: the removal of the prohibition on reelection in 2014, elections lacking democratic legitimacy in 2021, and the creation of a co-presidency without a popular mandate in 2025. This sequence demonstrates the regime’s strategy to remain in power outside popular will.
The starting point of this analysis is, precisely, the original illegitimacy of the electoral process of November 7, 2021. Said elections were rejected by the international community following the deliberate elimination of political competition, the imprisonment of pre-candidates, the cancellation of opposition parties, the absence of independent observation, and the suppression of fundamental guarantees for a free and authentic electoral process.
This reality was ratified by the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) through Resolution AG/RES. 2975 (LI-O/21), adopted on November 12, 2021, concluding that «the Nicaraguan elections were not free, fair, or transparent and lack democratic legitimacy.» Consequently, any authority emanating from said process was born tainted by a grave deficit of original democratic legitimacy.
Notwithstanding, even hypothetically accepting the existence of that mandate, it was conferred exclusively for the constitutional offices of President and Vice President of the Republic. Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo were fraudulently proclaimed President and Vice President, respectively, and the co-presidency did not exist when the illegitimate 2021 elections took place.
The Constitution reformed in 2025 modified the nature of the Executive Power by replacing the presidential model with a structure integrated by two co-presidents and eliminating the popular election of the vice presidency, establishing that vice presidents would be appointed directly by the co-presidents.
From constitutional theory, the representative mandate possesses a specific and non-delegable nature. Popular sovereignty only authorizes the exercise of the functions for which citizens have granted their consent through universal suffrage. When the offices for which certain authorities were elected disappear and are replaced by others that are qualitatively distinct, the original mandate cannot automatically transfer to the new office. Consequently, the so-called co-presidency lacks an original democratic mandate. Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo usurp functions corresponding to an ex post facto created office, without having been invested by the sovereign will to perform them; therefore, the proposed reform intends to extend a legally non-existent and illegitimate mandate.
Thus, the gravity of the problem transcends the absence of electoral legitimacy, since, from a strictly constitutional perspective, the National Assembly lacks jurisdiction to transform the essential structure of the State through the ordinary procedure of partial constitutional reform. They are non nata reforms, legally non-existent, because they originate from a body that exceeded the powers granted by the Constitution.
The creation of a co-presidency, the modification of the Executive Power’s electoral system, the concentration of powers in its officeholders, and the disappearance of the separation of powers constitute structural transformations of the political system. These changes can only be carried out by a Constituent Assembly convened by the people.
It is precisely here where the doctrines of original unconstitutionality and legal non-existence acquire special relevance. The former holds that a legal rule lacks validity when produced by an incompetent body or through a procedure incompatible with the Constitution. The latter goes even further: certain acts, due to the severity of their defects, do not even attain legal existence, as they lack the essential elements required to produce valid effects within the legal order.
Under this premise, one cannot extend, prolong, or renew the term of authorities who no longer hold the offices for which they were proclaimed within an electoral process, nor can one retrospectively legitimize a co-presidency whose creation lacks legal validity.
In accordance with the democratic principles enshrined in the Inter-American Democratic Charter, the legitimacy of public power demands not only access to government through authentic elections, but also the exercise of power within the constitutional framework and with respect for the principle of popular sovereignty. When both prerequisites disappear—as it occurs with an electoral process lacking legitimacy and constitutional reforms produced by a manifestly incompetent body—power ceases to have a legal foundation and becomes a de facto situation.
From this perspective, acts enacted under the constitutional framework established in 2025 lack legitimate binding force both for Nicaraguan citizens and for the international community in a future democratic transition process. The extension of the presidential term does not represent the constitutional continuity of the State; it constitutes the prolongation of an institutional usurpation based on reforms lacking legitimacy and legal existence, as they are acts of force cloaked in a normative appearance.
In short, Nicaragua’s constitutional crisis can no longer be analyzed solely from the perspective of electoral fraud. The problem is deeper: the regime has de facto replaced the constitutional order through acts issued by a body without jurisdiction or powers to do so, usurping powers reserved exclusively for the original constituent power. The reform intended to extend the term of the so-called co-presidency does not prolong a constitutional mandate; it seeks to perpetuate a power whose democratic legitimacy and legal validity are non-existent from their origin.
In this context, the constitutional reforms currently under «consultation» seek to normalize, before Nicaraguans and the international community, the designation of authorities, consolidating the elimination of free elections. Thus, even under the framework of the illegally approved 2025 reforms, the illegitimate mandate of Ortega and Murillo formally ends on January 10, 2027. From this date forward, Ortega and Murillo will transition from an «illegitimate government» to a «de facto or factual government,» grounded in the use of force and not in a valid constitutional norm, exposing their intention to perpetuate the exercise of authoritarian and dynastic power outside popular sovereignty.
