The U.S. State Department and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have both come out strongly against Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega's questionable efforts to perpetuate in power after his term ends in 2011.

Despite a constitutional ban on consecutive presidential re-election, six Sandinista Supreme Court magistrates loyal to Ortega ruled Oct. 19 that the law barring re-election is unconstitutional ( NT, Oct. 23 ). The opposition, business leaders and social groups have all criticized the ruling as illegal and issued statements claiming they don't recognize the verdict.

The U.S. government is also having a hard time swallowing it.

“Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega's manipulation of the Nicaraguan Supreme Court this week to circumvent constitutional limits on his term in office reeks of the authoritarianism of the past,” said U.S. Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a release. “Coming on the heels of universally condemned municipal elections last year, his power grab deepens a crisis that Nicaragua can ill afford.”

Kerry said the situations in Nicaragua and Honduras are “obviously different,” but said “unconstitutional actions are unacceptable anywhere.”

“President Ortega appears to be following the cues of the coup-plotters in Honduras,” Kerry said.

Kerry's comments came after similar condemnation by the U.S. State Department, which issued a statement Thursday evening saying it was “very concerned” with the manner in which the decision was made.

“We share the concern of many Nicaraguans that this situation is part of a larger pattern of questionable and irregular governmental actions, beginning before the flawed municipal elections of November 2008, that threatens to undermine the foundations of Nicaraguan democracy and calls into question the Nicaraguan government's commitment to uphold the Inter-American Democratic Charter,” the State Department's statement said.

In Nicaragua, opposition groups continue to demonstrate their repudiation of the Supreme Court decision, which was made by Sandinista magistrates in the absence of opposition judges (http://www.ticotimes.net/dailyarchive/2009_10/1021091.cfm, http://www.ticotimes.net/dailyarchive/2009_10/1022092.cfm).

On Thursday morning, a group of masked teenagers attacked Sandinista magistrate Francisco Rosales, president of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court, with eggs. On Friday, Rosales had armed bodyguards to avoid getting anymore egg on his face.

In a separate incident, human rights activists are condemning another recent attack by alleged Sandinista supporters, who beat a civil society activist and broke her arm as she returned home from a protest Thursday evening.

More clandestine protests are being planned in different cities this weekend and next week, according to Nica Times' sources.

Ortega, meanwhile, insists the court ruling is “written in stone” and urged Nicaraguans to move on. The Sandinistas pushed a similar message after the contested municipal elections last year, in which they are accused of stealing more than 30 mayors' seats.