Nicaragua: A country where the President and Vice President are husband and wife

Daniel Ortega and wife

Nicaragua is a country that elected a husband and wife duo as president and vice-president, with former Sandinista guerrilla Daniel Ortega winning a third consecutive term in the poor Central American nation.

Mr Ortega, 70, and his supporters pushed constitutional changes through Congress that ended presidential term limits in 2014. A staunch Left-wing ally of Venezuela and Cuba, he is praised for poverty reduction but criticised for what is seen as attempting to install a family dynasty.

Indeed, his wife, Rosario Murillo, has long played a powerful role in Mr Ortega’s government – leading to comparisons with the Netflix television series House of Cards, in which Frank Underwood’s wife is as Machiavellian and politically-astute as her husband.

The 65-year-old Ms Murillo is the official government spokesman, preventing anyone else from speaking on behalf of the ruling authority. She clashed with members of her husband’s inner circle, side-lining them one by one and kicking them out of their offices in the presidential palace. And, in her brightly-hued dresses and loud jewellery, she became the most visible member of the government – appearing on state television and handing over pigs and tin rooves to Nicaragua’s poor.

The Ortegas effectively banned the opposition – several parties refused to participate – and prevented election monitors from observing the election.

But Mr Ortega said the lack of international observers was a sign of progress, in a country whose 1980s civil war against US-backed Contra rebels cost 30,000 lives.

“Now it’s us, the Nicaraguans, who decide, because we no longer have a single Yankee general here,” said Mr Ortega, referring to years of US interference in the country’s affairs.

“It’s we Nicaraguans who count the votes, this is a sovereign democracy.”

Mr Ortega rose to prominence in the 1970s – toppling dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979, and leading the country during the 1980s.

After losing the 1990 election, Mr Ortega threatened to fade into history, but the former fighter managed to orchestrate a return to power when he became president in the 2006 election.

He met Ms Murillo when they were both guerrilla fighters, hiding out in Costa Rica. She already had two children, and her oldest daughter, Zoilamerica, was adopted by Mr Ortega in her late teens.

But in 1998 Ms Ortega, now 48, publicly accused Mr Ortega of sexually abusing her for years. She said he had taken advantage of the chaos of the civil war and had begun molesting her around the time that the Sandinista revolutionaries claimed victory, when she was 11.

Her mother, who has another seven children with Mr Ortega, stood by him and called her eldest daughter a liar who had psychological problems.

Ms Ortega’s Bolivian-born husband was kicked out of the country, and the couple now live in exile in Costa Rica.

And despite the United States and international organisations having voiced concern about Mr Ortega’s stranglehold on power, the World Bank acknowledges that poverty has fallen almost 13 percentage points under his rule. A substantial part of those gains have been funded by Venezuelan petrodollars that have underpinned social programs, helped private business and slashed energy costs.

Mr Ortega has also forged alliances with the business sector, helping Nicaragua to achieve average growth rates of 5 per cent in the past five years.