The Diplomat
Nicaragua will once again have an ambassador to Spain, nine months after Daniel Ortega’s government decided to recall Carlos Midence -who had held the post since September 2016- at a time of maximum tension in relations with our country.
Last Friday, the Nicaraguan government informed the Nicaraguan National Assembly of the presidential decree appointing Maurizio Carlo Alberto Gelli as ambassador in Madrid. The appointment will be ratified without problems because the Sandinistas have an absolute majority in the Assembly, following elections that the opposition parties considered fraudulent.
Gelli, an Italian citizen who became a naturalised Nicaraguan citizen in May 2009, had been Nicaragua’s ambassador to Canada since 2017, after having previously held the same post in Uruguay.
The Spanish government gave the placet for Maurizio Gelli’s appointment in an attempt to normalise relations with Nicaragua, after criticism of Daniel Ortega’s attitude towards opposition parties and the media critical of the Sandinista regime caused a major rift between Madrid and Managua.
Spain recalled its ambassador in Managua, Mar Fernández-Palacios, for consultations in August 2021, in response to a communiqué published the previous day by the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry which contained, according to the Spanish Foreign Ministry, ‘gross falsehoods about Spanish judicial and electoral processes’.
When Spain subsequently decided to return the ambassador to her post, the Nicaraguan government opposed this and, in order to avoid the expulsion of its ambassador in Madrid, Carlos Midence, decided to recall him on 10 March this year, leaving the embassy in charge as Chargé d’Affaires, the Minister Counsellor, Milagros Urbina.
Despite the estrangement, last July, the Spanish government asked Nicaragua to give its approval for the appointment of Pilar Terrén as the new ambassador to Nicaragua. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, headed by José Manuel Albares, responded to requests from relatives of opponents repressed by the Sandinista regime, who expressed their desire to have witnesses on the ground about what is happening in the country.
The Ortega government quickly granted authorisation for the appointment of Pilar Terrén, who immediately took up her post. Albares also reserved the appointment of the embassy’s ‘number two’, who will be Diego Mourelle, a young diplomat, who will soon join the embassy team.
