Officers surrounded the former army chief’s residence on Sunday night when mobile phones and computers were seized.
The Nicaraguan Police searched the home of Humberto Ortega, brother of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, after he conducted an interview in which he assured that the president has no successors, according to the newspaper ‘La Prensa’.
Officers surrounded the former army chief’s residence on Sunday night when mobile phones and computers were seized. The police detachment, headed by a general identified as Vladimir Cerda, told him that he should communicate any movement he would make although he was not detained.
On the other hand, sources close to Ortega pointed out to the newspaper ‘Confidential’ that several of its workers have been held by the authorities of the Central American country.
During the weekend, he said in an exclusive interview with Infobae that, in the event that the 78-year-old president dies, “it is very difficult for there to be a continuity of the immediate power group” because it is an “authoritarian, dictatorial power like the current one, which depends very much on the figure of a leader who holds the presidency.”
“The same authoritarian, personalist, verticalist tendency to command has castrated the party’s transmission straps. The match currently has no replacement. They are there, not for a mystique, but for being there as officials, many wanting to do well, but more than anything, having benefits from that government and political participation,” he said at the time.
Thus, he said that “with Daniel’s absence it would be very fragile to sustain everything he has managed so far to sustain with great effort and enormous complexities. Not only at the domestic level, but also with the allied forces of the left and the governments of the region.” Faced with a “sudden absence,” there would be “a huge bewilderment and impossibility of the civilian part of the government and the party being able to assume solid power (…) The only thing that can solve that vacuum and that there is no anarchy or chaos is the Army,” he added.
On the other hand, he denounced assassination attempts against him, pointing out that he has been told “several times” that he is a “traitor” and adding that he has no escort from the Army or the Police. “The escort I have is organized and financed with my own effort. Simple people. Some retired from Army. And there are few. I mean, if they want to kill me it’s easy,” he explained.
This article has been translated after first appearing in Diario El Mundo