Sandinistas make some edits on constitution while no one’s looking

This is a new tactic. Having failed to legally amend the Nicaraguan constitution to keep his political allies in office, President Daniel Ortega simply had the constitution reprinted with a few key changes while the country was away on vacation. The Christian Science Monitor reports: 

Taking advantage of last week’s public holiday decreed by President Daniel Ortega, top Sandinista legislator Rene Núñez ordered the reprinting of the Nicaraguan Constitution while the rest of the country was on vacation. When opposition lawmakers returned to work this week, they discovered that the "new edition" of the Constitution mysteriously included an old law that many left for dead 20 years ago.

According to the resurrected second paragraph of Law 201, supreme court judges, electoral magistrates, and other public officials can remain in office beyond their term limits until new officials are appointed. The problem is, according to legal analysts, that the law was a "transitory" provision in the 1987 Constitution and expired more than two decades ago. That’s why it wasn’t included in the current Constitution, which was printed after the reforms of 1995.

Yet with elections happening next year, Mr. Ortega, who hopes to run despite a constitutional ban on presidential reelection, wants to keep his "dream team" government in office, even though the terms of 25 top officials have already expired.

Some opposition groups have gone as far as to call on citizens to burn copies of the new constitution in the streets. A better approach might be to print up their own editions, removing Ortega from power. It’s the Calvinball approach to constitutional reform.