Current Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, elected in 2007 for a 5 year period, filed an amparo suit before the Constitutional Chamber of the Nicaraguan Supreme Court arguing that a 1995 constitutional amendment that imposed limits to indefinite reelection violates his constitutional rights. The Constitutional Chamber decided yesterday that it is unconstitutional to prohibit the reelection of the president of the Republic.
Daniel Ortega is the former leader of the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), the liberation army that fought against the long dictatorship established in Nicaragua by the Somoza family. After the transition to democracy in 1985, Daniel Ortega was elected president for a 5 year period until 1990, when his party lost the election against the opposition lead by Violeta Barrios de Chamorro. It took Daniel Ortega seventeen years to go back to the presidency and now it seems that his plans are not to leave it that easily. Ortega was trying to get the necessary votes in the National Assembly to reform Article 147 of the Constitution and allow for his reelection, but was simultaneously pursuing a judicial strategy, which now seems to have worked best.
In declarations for a local newspaper, the president of the Constitutional Chamber, Rafael Solís, argued that their decision was supported by similar recent decisions by the Costa Rican Constitutional Chamber (the well-known Sala Cuarta, that made possible the re-election of current President Oscar Arias) as well as the decision by the Colombian Court allowing for the re-election of current president Álvaro Uribe. The Nicaraguan Supreme Court en banc, composed by sixteen magistrates, still has to ratify the decision made by its Constitutional Chamber.
JRF