Nicaraguan president’s wife tapped to be his running mate
Tue., Aug. 2, 2016
MANAGUA, Nicaragua – Nicaragua’s governing Sandinista party on Tuesday named first lady Rosario Murillo as the running-mate of President Daniel Ortega in his bid for a third term in Nov. 6 elections.
Murillo already holds considerable power in Nicaragua as chief government spokeswoman. Even the red-and-black flags of the Sandinista revolution have been supplanted by the pink and baby blue colors favored by Murillo.
While Ortega occasionally appears in public, Murillo holds forth regularly on national television with a stream of rhetoric that blends socialism, New Age spirituality and Roman Catholicism.
Ortega ruled Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, when he lost an election to Violeta Chamorro. Murillo led the campaigns that returned Ortega to the presidency in 2006 and won him re-election in 2011.
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