The dark life of Rosario Murillo: from the shadows to absolute power in Nicaragua
In Nicaraguainvestiga.com
Oct 17, 2025
The political trajectory of Rosario Murillo started in 1969, when she joined the Sandinista Front for National Liberation (FSLN) as a young activist.
“While recalling this heroic deed which fills all of us with courage, decades have passed, but Sandino was there and Sandino is here, and while recalling the betrayal we know that it is up to us to defend peace in the face of all the traitors and cowards who are there, just that thanks to God, in another world which is not the better world, and which is not the sublime world, no, the world of iniquity,” said Murillo this past June in a medium which she owns.
Rosario Murillo, the figure which today embodies absolute power in Nicaragua along with her husband, Daniel Ortega, has built a public narrative of revolutionary devotion and personal mysticism. Nevertheless, a detailed examination of her trajectory reveals profound contradictions between that official image and documented actions, marked by family tragedies, opportunistic decisions and a progressive concentration of power which has eroded democratic institutions.
This analysis unravels her years prior to 2007, exposing hidden history like her role in initial Sandinism, possible opaque business connections and clandestine political elections which positioned her for a relentless ascent. Connecting her evolution to systemic changes, it reveals how her shadow has facilitated the consolidation of an authoritarian regime, where the executive power has absorbed independent controls, from constitutional reforms to the purging of dissidents.
The origins of Sandinism: from clandestine life to personal consolidation (1980s)
The political trajectory of Rosario Murillo begins in 1969, when she joined the Sandinista Front of National Liberation (FSLN) as a young activist, just two years after having become an adolescent mother at the age of 16. Her oldest daughter, Zoilamérica, was born in 1967 from her relationship with Jorge Narváez Parajón, a marriage forced by her mother that only lasted two years and ended in separation.
This early stage, marked by personal losses, contrasts with the official version of Murillo as an “unwavering revolutionary”: in reality, her turbulent family life – including the death of her son Anua Joaquín in the earthquake in Managua in 1972 and that of her mother in a car accident in 1973 – pushed her toward activism, but also toward esoteric interests which persist in her current rhetoric.
During the 1970s Murillo was active in exile, first in Costa Rica where she helped found a movement of artists opposed to the regime of Anastasio Somoza. In 1977 fleeing the Somoza repression, she went into exile with her spouse at that time, Carlos Vicente “Quincho” Ibarra, a student leader of the FSLN who led the National Student Union (UNEN). Installed in a safe house with her children – including Carlos Enrique, fruit of that union – Murillo made a transcendental decision: she left Ibarra when Daniel Ortega, at that time in a relationship with the guerrilla Leticia Herrera, intervened.
Ordered by the FSLN to a theatre workshop, Ibarra returned to find his family dissolved; Murillo had begun a relationship with Ortega, prioritizing political alliances over personal bonds. This maneuver, documented in family testimony, illustrates a key contradiction: while the official narrative paints her as loyal to Sandinism, her actions reveal an opportunistic calculus which condemned Ibarra to anonymity – in spite of his initial prominence – and marginalized Herrera, whose relationship with Ortega ended abruptly, leaving a son (Camilo Ortega Herrera) in a low profile place in the Public Registry.
In the 1980s with the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution in 1979, Murillo assumed discreet but influential roles in the National Directorate of the FSLN, leading cultural and social policies. Nevertheless, controversial decisions emerged during this period. She participated in the confiscation of properties of her own father, Teódulo Molina, a wealthy cotton farmer, expropriating more than 90 manzanas of land in Niquinohomo.
This action, executed under the Sandinista Government, contradicts her image of a devoted daughter; Molina, who had sent her to study in Europe, fell into depression and died of a stroke on February 26, 1996, publicly blaming his “spoiled daughter” and son in law. In addition, testimony from her daughter Zoilamérica – who in 1998 denounced sexual abuse on the part of Ortega, witnessed by her aunt Violeta during their exile in Costa Rica – suggest that Murillo covered up the abuse, threatening relatives to silence them. These events, which happened in the underground and in transition, shaped her ascent: initial Sandinism provided her with networks, but her personal decisions eroded family connections, isolating her sisters (Lorena, Violeta and María de Lourdes) for more than 30 years and questioning her ethical commitment beyond power.
Business connections in that era are opaque, but reports indicate that Murillo took advantage of her position to impact cultural networks, possibly extending into economic initiatives linked to the FSLN, like the opening of relationships with Venezuela in the 2000´s. These alliances, forged in the underground, set the bases for her later strategic invisibility.
Democratic transition and low profile (Years 1990 and 2000)
After the electoral defeat of the FSLN in 1990, Murillo entered into a phase of relative invisibility, remaining in the National Directorate of the party but without prominent public posts until 2007. This “shadow” contrasts with her current omnipresence: while Ortega led the opposition, Murillo operated behind the scenes, consolidating influence in social and cultural polices. In the 1990s she faced personal scrutiny, like the denouncement of Zoilamérica in 1998, which expressed family tensions and alleged coverups, but Murillo avoided public responsibility, focused on reorganizing the FSLN after the defeat.
In the 2000s her role became more visible in the opposition, but still discreet: she cofounded movements of women connected to the regime, silencing internal dissidents and preparing the way for the return of Ortega. In 1990 Murillo publicly said that she did not want to “appear again beside Daniel Ortega in a photo” (in the newspaper El País), according to contemporary testimony, but by 2006 she was then his unconditional ally in the presidential campaign. This invisibility allowed her to accumulate power without scrutiny, connecting herself to institutional changes like the erosion of the separation of powers through pacts with the Liberals, which facilitated the electoral reforms in 2000 to lower the threshold for presidential victory to 35% of the vote. Her decisions in this transition- like marginalizing former Sandinista allies – reveal a pattern of incipient purges, preparing her ascent.
Some reports document her influence in economic networks linked to Venezuela from 2004-8 through old allies like the former mayor of Managua, Dionisio Marenco, even though without direct evidence of personal businesses, suggesting an approach more of political control.
Consolidation of power: from first lady to “co-president” in an absolutist regime
With the return of Ortega to power in January 2007, Murillo emerged from the shadows as the first lady, assuming control over social and cultural policies, and by 2017 became vice-president.
This consolidation coincided with profound institutional changes: since 2007 the regime has reformed the Constitution multiple times, extending presidential mandates from five to six years in 2024, and creating the figure of “co-president” for Murillo, eliminating the separation of powers and concentrating authority in the couple.
The executive branch has absorbed the judicial and legislative branches, with massive purges of opponents, journalists and former Sandinistas since 2018, intensified in 2025 with the “great purge” of Murillo, decapitating the FSLN of potential rivals.
While Murillo proposes a narrative of “peace and love” with esoteric symbolism – previously she thought that her son Juan Carlos “was the reincarnation of Sandino” – her actions include systematic repression, like the closing of civic spaces and the surveillance of dissidents since 2007.
US sanctions in 2018 accused her of corruption and human rights abuses, in contrast to her public victimization in the face of “harmful campaigns”. Her rise has facilitated vertical control: since the rebellion of 2018 she has expanded the police forces to more than 76,800 troops (including volunteers), changing the balance of power and exiling old allies. Today Murillo is not just co-dictator, but the force behind a dynastic regime, where her “guillotine” falls on anyone, consolidating a de facto monarchy which connects her personal trajectory to the destruction of democratic controls.
