Weekly Report - 28 February 2013 (WR-13-08)

NICARAGUA | New “family” cabinets. President Daniel Ortega is stoking fresh civil society concerns regarding the threat to individual privacy. On 21 February, the national assembly, which is dominated by Ortega’s Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), ratified the so-called “cabinets of family, health and life”, promoted by Nicaragua’s powerful first lady, Rosario Murillo. A lack of clarity surrounds the nature of these new entities which are tasked with prompting “family values, responsibility and well being” in the family home. Opposition deputies and civil society groups warn that they constitute a threat to privacy and represent the latest incarnation of the controversial citizen power councils (CPCs), the flagship project of Ortega’s previous administration (2007-2012). Initially billed as part of efforts to boost citizen participation, the CPCs became an extension of the executive by presidential decree in November 2007. Civil society groups have since complained that they serve as an extension of the FSLN party structure, blurring state/party lines.

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