He is 41. His outfit (a gray Italian business suit) is very different from the casual sports jacket that his father, Commander Daniel Ortega, usually wears in official ceremonies. Laureano stepped onto the podium and his face was projected on the screen located beside him. In four minutes, he explained his nation is working on mechanisms to dodge the sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union by supporting a new world order in which Russia is a “fundamental pillar to promote multilateralism” – standing out from other radical voices such as Cuba.
In his speech, the president’s son offered to turn Nicaragua into a platform for Russian companies in the region, a proposal he also extended to China and Iran throughout 2023.
Laureano was with his parents last February in the welcoming ceremony honoring Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian. A meeting in which the Iranian official didn’t talk specifically about cooperation areas, although he did say that Nicaraguan “energy security” was “very important” for his country, and he discussed his nation’s experience “neutralizing” international sanctions.
As Laureano was getting ready to attend an economic forum in Saint Petersburg, last June, Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi met with the ruling couple in his trip to Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba, in an event dubbed by the pro-government press in Nicaragua as “the meeting of twin revolutions.”
The presidential advisor is the sixth of nine children of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, a couple of political leaders that have steered the fate of the Central American country for 44 years. They led the executive branch during the years of the revolution that failed to deliver its promises (1979-1990) amidst a civil war, and they have done so under the shadow of fierce institutional control, repression and family continuismo (2007-to date). In practice, Laureano is the family’s direct liaison with the autocracies of Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and ayatollah Ruhollah Jomeini.
In the first eleven months of 2023, Ortega Murillo traveled twice to Beijing and seven times to Moscow and Minsk, where he even met with the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashensko, last May. According to an inspection of pro-government media outlets conducted by CONNECTAS, the presidential advisor had an intense schedule that included public activities with 68 presentations, all of which have taken place in Nicaragua and abroad.
In March 2023, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov condecorated the son of the Ortegas with the Order of Friendship. Photos that were made public show him beaming and proud. In recent years, relationships with Russia have enabled a very shady militarization of Nicaragua, and donations of wheat and buses for public transportation. These were the vehicles that preceded last October’s purchase of 250 Chinese buses, delivered in a public act by the presidential couple and his son to drivers in Managua.
In Beijing, Laureano was greeted by a group of important politicians in February and July of 2023. In his latest trip, he met with Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat, and a member of the Political Bureau of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Director of the Central Committee Foreign Affairs Commission. He also met with Li Mingxiang, assistant-minister of the International Department of the Central Committee of the same party.
Recent agreements entered into with the Asian giant include the purchase of Chinese buses, a free trade agreement, the construction of five infrastructure projects (including a railroad and and international airport), as well as the development of areas such as telecommunications and renewable energy, which could potentially change the path of the economy of Latin America’s second poorest country, with a per capita income of 2,102 dollars in 2021.
Nevertheless, three factors affect the so-called boom announced by pro-government political forces. Chinese investment plummeted to zero in 2020 in Latin America and afterwards it was very limited, according to Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank based in Washington that has followed up on the subject. Ortega’s other political ally (Russia) embroiled in a geopolitical conflict following its invasion of Ukraine. The most complicated issue for the feasibility of these promises is Laureano’s own track record, in his 14-year career as public official he has continuously pushed projects that never come to fruition: at least three failed and and 33 remain on paper because they have lacked funding in the budget reports. Some projects have been awarded resources, but they are still in works stages.
“China needs to maintain a territorial footprint in America. Basically, their interest is not to build a commercial presence in Nicaragua, but to tap into their presence in those countries (in Latin America) to plant their technology and eventually control the weapons market, while they promote a political model that is contrary to the democratic world,” asserts Nicaraguan political scientist Manuel Orozco, director of the Migration, Remittances and Development Program, Inter-American Dialogue.
At the peak of alliances with anti-American superpowers, Laureano has gained a level of notoriety that, according to many, projects him as the regimen’s political successor. Enrique Saenz (economist and former representative of the antecedent party Movimiento Renovador Sandinista) claims that they are building an image that drifts apart from the Commander’s guerrilla member image, although he adds that Laureano’s influence is contingent on his parents.
His mother, Rosario Murillo (72) is only six years younger than her husband, but has amassed as much power as Ortega. He introduced her at a recent event as the “co-president”. The existence of a ruler, a wife defined in those terms, and a son serving as “advisor” is typical of an autocratic system, according to political scientist and former president of Costa Rica, Luis Guillermo Solis. This case reminds him of the systems of succession to power in North Korea, the 16th century European courts, and of the dictatorship of the Somoza family (paradoxically, the one that Ortega helped topple in his youth).
Orozco considers that Laureano is an accomplice of the dictatorship, which has been accused of institutional abuse and human rights violations. He is in charge of foreign affairs – directly entrusted by his parents. He has achieved a prominence that has blurred the image of the actual Minister of Foreign Affairs Denis Moncada Colindres, the retired military leader has been practically left dealing with administrative functions.
“He is the family’s chancellor, he basically has no interest in ruling, but (Laureano) is covering the pieces of the regime’s political machinery regarding Nicaragua’s formal relationships. Thus, he plays a key and unique role,” Orozco said.
Orozco mentioned in an interview with CONNECTAS last September that the presidential couple believes Laureano brings in some “equanimity” to the regime’s rhetoric and international relationships. The connections of the Central American country with the world have been marked by the commander’s anti-American speech, following international condemnation resulting from human rights violations that took place in 2018.
Ortega’s new allies not only remained silent about the Central American country’s internal affairs, they also defended Nicaragua’s “sovereignty” and questioned the “interference” of the international community. Nevertheless, in terms of economic impact, official data presented by the BCN (Central Bank of Nicaragua), reveal that the main market of Nicaragua is still the United States.
In a campaign of the executive power, Commander Ortega has condemned sanctions imposed by the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the European Union as an aggression against the country. However, key sectors of the local economy have reported a growth that contradicts the official message. The BCN states that Nicaraguan exports went from 5,416.1 million dollars in 2017 to 7,730.9 million dollars in 2022.
American sanctions targeted 61 officials, agencies and companies linked with the presidential family since December 2017, as per information of the Department of the Treasury. Those sanctioned include Laureano, his siblings Rafael, Camila and Juan Carlos, and his mother Murillo. Also those in charge of the repression, police chiefs, judges, security advisor Nestor Moncada Lau, and the Army’s high command.
The institutions sanctioned were the Police, the Public Ministry, and the General Directorate of Mines. The latter is striking because the Treasury stated that the mining authority was “a significant piece in the country’s gold extraction operation controlled by the State of Nicaragua”. Despite the sanctions, the Central American nation sold 676.5 million dollars of gold worldwide in 2022, i.e., almost 200 million dollars more than in 2020. Nevertheless, these figures are questionable because an investigation by CONNECTAS and Articulo 66 entitled “Las matematicas fallan en el gran negocio de Nicaragua” revealed that the country exported more than it produced.
In May last year, the New York Times revealed that Laureano (despite his proximity with Russia, China and Iran) had unsuccessfully and quietly reached out to the administration of Joe Biden, offering the release of political prisoners in exchange. Yet in February 2023, the regime unilaterally sent 222 prisoners of conscience into exile to the United States.
In a public address, the regime stood firmly against the sanctions and seeked to strengthen its internal security with Russia by its side. Laureano’s personal meetings with General Nicolay Patrushev, Secretary of the Security Council of Russia, opened the doors to a likely entering into a security memorandum to “detect, prevent and eliminate the consequences of cyberattacks,” of which no further details were given.
The Promoter of Failed Projects
Laureano Ortega Murillo broke into public official life in the area of investment promotion, in which he connected with members of the private sector starting 2009. His first steps were as advisor in ProNicaragua (the state agency that promotes investment and exports), an agency that the regime kept legally active up until October 2022.
Since then, at the request of the executive branch, the representatives of the Sandinista National Liberation Front created the Secretary of Investment and Export Promotion, defined as the legal successor of ProNicaragua. In representation of ProNicaragua, Laureano drove projects amounting to 5,230 million dollars in 2016 framed in public private partnerships.
The most significant infrastructure project he promoted, aside from the investment agency, was the Interoceanic Canal in 2013, which required a financial injection of 50,000 million dollars. That year, the regime awarded the concession of the canal to Chinese businessman Wang Jing for at least 50 years, extendable for five decades more. An onerous deal for the sovereignty of Nicaragua, which (had it taken place) would have become a reality in 2020, with boats crossing from ocean to ocean through Nicaragua.
In the promotional tour of this failed project, Laureano traveled with a delegation of members of the Nicaraguan private sector to visit construction companies in China in October 2013. They went to notable infrastructure projects such as the Three Gorges Dam, which has an installed capacity of 22,500 megawatts.
Nicaraguan businessmen hoped to have direct contact with Wang and executives of his company Hong Kong Nicaragua Canal Development (HKND Group), they told pro-government media outlets. They did meet, but the presidential emissary kept his distance.
A member of the party anonymously commented that the relationship was very superficial and that Ortega Murillo didn’t have a lot of contact with the delegation. Neither with the president of the guild, Jose Adan Aguerri, nor with other businessmen such as Raul Amador.
“We traveled together, but we never really mixed. Most chamber presidents were together, but the others were not. It was evident that Laureano was industrious, he woke up early and was part of the working sessions that lasted more than 12 hours, but there was never direct contact with him. Not even during meals, he ate with his entourage and we weren’t acquainted with them,” he added.
The unfulfilled promises helped consolidate the regime, warns former representative Enrique Saenz, because many of the 6.8 million Nicaraguans felt that well-being was achievable.
In June 2012, Laureano announced the direct flight Rome-Havana-Managua, alongside executives of the Italian airline Blue Panorama. The news faded, and in October this year the company canceled its flights to Nicaragua alleging lack of profitability, only to finally close off its operation in December 2022. All that was left was the photo of Laureano in the airstair and of an African lion cub in Managua, which was then taken to the National Zoo after he was flown into the country in the maiden flight as a “passenger of honor”.
Among the announcements made by the son of the president was Nicaragua’s own satellite: the “Nicasat-1”, but that didn’t happen either. In private, Nicaraguans used to call the device the “Chayo sat”, alluding to Rosario Murillo’s nickname (usually, women called Rosario are referred to as Chayo). In 2021, and after having completely neglected its unfulfilled spacial promises, the State officially created the “National Secretariat for Extraterrestrial Space Affairs, The Moon and Other Celestial Bodies”.
Only one of the projects led by Laureano went from chimera to reality. With the funding of the Social Security of Nicaragua and of Russia, a Russian laboratory to manufacture vaccines was built in Managua. The Latin American Institute of Biotechnology Mechnikov made headlines as a result of a 50,000-dollar party to commemorate the top-class business. The celebration included the president’s son, lots of vodka and empanadas filled with black caviar and salmon, as per an investigation published by La Prensa in 2017.
Tenor, Laureano’s Other Facet
Laureano was born on November 20th, 1982 in the household of two elite members of Nicaragua’s revolutionary elite. He was indoctrinated in Colegio Doris Morales, in Managua, where children sang the hymn of the Sandinista National Liberation Front and were taught Russian.
His mother’s authority was vital in this home of politicians with an artistic profile. The tenor has admitted that Murillo instilled the need to play musical instruments. He mentioned this in an interview with Cristyana Somarriba in 2017.
When he was 16 he founded the rock band Ciclo de Luna with his brother, Juan Carlos, according to what he said to his singing teacher Alberto Cayetano San Jose Molina, a Cuban acquaintance of the family who was interested in lyric, right after his singing training started. He was introduced to the “anthology of Italian music”. “I fell in love with the opera listening to Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras, and Andrea Bocelli, the great tenors, baritones and sopranos,” he confessed.
On July 19th, 2003, the tenor sang Franz Schubert’s Ave Maria in commemoration of the anniversary of the Sandinista revolution, an event that was presided by his parents. He was 21 at the moment. Fast forward five years and he participated in his first opera, Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto.
As an artist, he led in 2015 the creation of Incanto (Fundacion Instituto del Canto), which became his opera platform. In its website, he is featured as a founding member, even though he is not listed in the institution’s registration in the Ministry of Governance. Those included in the official document are his teacher San Jose Molina (president), the director of the National Theater, Ramon Rodriguez (vice-president), the soprano Elisa Picado (secretary), Nelson Martin Gutierrez Herrera (treasurer), and the general consul of Nicaragua in Florence (Italy) Moreno Gabrielli (member).
In that institution, Laureano mingled with other artists, such as baritone Mario Rocha, a maestro with 24 year’s experience who considered him to be a colleague while he worked at Incanto from 2016-2018. Nevertheless, a crack hurt that relationship in the State’s repression of protests in April 2018, resulting in hundreds of casualties.
In an ethical stance, Rocha sent a letter to the son of the presidential couple. He never got a reply, according to his account published in 2019 in the digital newspaper Confidencial. The baritone refused to speak to CONNECTAS for this journalistic feature.
Politics have permeated his passion for music more than once. Due to Laureano’s role in the State, Incanto was allocated state funds. Alvaro Navarro, director of the digital newspaper Articulo 66, recalls that his team disclosed the institution had received public funding amounting to at least 8.3 million cordobas between 2016 and 2018, approximately 270,000 dollars.
Navarro is in exile in Costa Rica, and he maintains that the injection of public funds to a private foundation constitutes a corruption scheme with which Daniel Ortega fulfills his children’s whims. To explain it, he cites two examples: the case of Laureano with the opera, and Nicaragua Diseña, Camila Ortega Murillo’s fashion platform. “Laureano is one of the stars in the corruption scheme that his father and mother have set up,” the journalist adds.
However, silence surrounds the activities of the presidential family. Even those who defend him risk a lot if they talk to media outlets that are critical of Ortega. An artist that knows him agreed to speak with CONNECTAS but only anonymously. He said there is an “effort” to “democratize culture” and denied the alleged conflict of interest arising from funding the foundation with public funds. “I don’t see the contradiction because we are disseminating culture,” he stated.
CONNECTAS asked for an interview with Laureano Ortega, but our request, forwarded to Incanto, was never responded. According to data from pro-government media outlets, the political schedule of the sixth child of the Ortega-Murillo couple was more prevalent than his artistic performances – he only participated in nine artistic activities of a total of 68 that were scheduled between January and October 2023.
In those months, the son of the president took part in a concert in tribute to the Sandinista revolution, in another one for mothers and in an opera show presented by Fundacion Incanto. He performed on August 25th, 2023 in the opera Tosca, by Italian Giacomo Puccini. With fake blood running through his left temple, Laureano starred in the role of a revolutionary who tries to topple the crown.
Five days later, Ortega’s son resumed his political schedule. On August 30th, 2023, Laureano attended the ceremony in recognition of the departing Ambassador of Iran in Managua Majid Salehi, and he (virtually) led the execution of the nascent Free Trade Agreement between China and Nicaragua. In an ostensible cult to his personality, a trait of the Nicaraguan regime, the pro-government media outlet 19 Digital published a 10-paragraph note with nine photographs of the president’s son. With this new act, tenor Laureano continues performing his own story.
