Rosario Murillo: Between Madame Mao and Grace Mugabe
She, more than anyone, knows many are waiting with a dagger in their mouth, intent on any opening that could arise with Daniel Ortega’s death.
By Douglas Castro-Quezada (Confidencial)
HAVANA TIMES – One of the great errors of the Nicaraguan democratic forces has been to underestimate Daniel Ortega, a politician who has managed to maintain himself as the central force of Nicaraguan politics for more than 40 years. We mustn’t repeat that error with another personality, by underestimating Rosario Murillo and the strategy she’s systematically executing. In fact, we’re feeling in our own flesh the logical consequences of her strategy.
What does this consist of? For some, her actions are nothing more than the erratic frenzy of an irrational person, motivated solely by hate and vengeance – a kind of “witch.” While it’s true that her personality is profoundly marked by these features, enough time has passed to warn us that we’re facing a woman with an implacable lust for power.
Before speaking of her strategy, we need to be clear about her objective: to establish a permanent family dynasty that bears her imprint. With that in mind, she’s traced a strategy that has become ever more evident and that revolves around a decisive variable, defined as that which determines the outcome of a specific situation.
In Nicaragua, we shouldn’t deceive ourselves: the decisive variable is and will continue to be the National Army. Any resolution regarding the succession in power will be decided by the armed forces. Mao Zedong already said it: “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun,” a declaration that couldn’t be truer in Nicaragua, where the “hollow rods” have marked our history since we gained independence.
Rosario confronts a situation similar to that of other dictators’ wives who attempted to dispute the authoritarian succession of their husbands: Madame Mao (Jiang Qing) in China, and Grace Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Both failed attempts ended in disgrace for the aspiring women. What Rosario Murillo is attempting – to succeed her husband as dictator – is something that, up to this point in modern history, no wife has achieved. The mere fact of establishing an objective of this magnitude reveals her ambition and daring.
Grace Mugabe allied herself with the young army officers and some politicians. Nonetheless, the high command of the Army always looked upon her with suspicion, to the point where, when they became aware that Robert Mugabe was no longer governing and that she was calling the shots, they decided to toss out the regime – a dictatorship that had lasted 37 years. In the case of Madame Mao, her mistakes were not managing to have herself named successor by her husband, and also not occupying any position in the government or the party. In the end, the moderate leaders of the Chinese Communist Party and government won the decisive support of the Army and executed a bloodless palace coup that wiped her off the political map.
Murillo has apparently studied these two cases, because she has decisively avoided these same mistakes. On the contrary, her strategy continues to be surgically effective, to the astonishment of all her enemies – especially all those who are in the belly of the regime.
Three recent events give evidence of the crystallization of that strategy. First, the enshrinement of the figure of “co-president” within the Constitution itself. This move allows her maximum institutional power and formally designates her as the dictator’s successor. Second, the total cooptation of the Party leadership and the marginalization – even imprisonment – of those who aren’t loyal to her. This reached its highest point with the arrest and subsequent death as a political prisoner of retired general Humberto Ortega, founder of the Army and Daniel Ortega’s brother. Third, on May 7, 2025, she succeeded in having the Army generals swear allegiance to the co-presidency in a formal ceremony, in that way “sealing” Armed Forces backing of her role as successor.
However, Rosario Murillo has noted a widening crack in her strategy: Daniel Ortega’s increasingly frequent absences are generating speculations. The rumors of his failing health, even of his imminent death, leave her on shaky ground in the race to succeed him. For her, the ideal arrangement is a living but reduced Ortega, which would allow her to rule and gain time to consolidate her succession.
For that reason, on May 24, amid intense rumors about Ortega’s health, she again recurred to her old faithful ploy: “Display the mummy,” like a totem, as Madame Mao did with Mao Zedong, and Grace Mugabe with Robert Mugabe. Hence, we saw an extremely gaunt Ortega, nearly delirious, giving out buses as in a great political act, after having been absent from a key event in the Sandinista calendar – nothing less than the annual commemoration of Augusto C. Sandino’s birthday.
This strategy, though, isn’t invincible. It has a large weak spot: most of the population, along with the party militants, the state employees, and probably the military itself, hate and reject her. They also reject her intention to designate her son, Laureano Ortega, as successor. In the Sandinista circles, Laureano is viewed as a crown prince without the necessary attributes – an upstart without weight or character, who, despite having been cultivated within the dictatorship, hasn’t convinced anyone. In the Army, they appear little disposed to accept as their commander in chief someone whose original dream was to become an opera singer.
The constant purges and the generalized popular hatred seem to indicate that many are awaiting the opportunity to betray her and seek some other way out for the nation during the inevitable period of turbulence that will follow Ortega’s demise. She, more than anyone else, knows that many are intently waiting with their daggers in their mouths, for any opening that could arise with Ortega’s death. That’s why she acts as she does.