Nicaraguan
President Daniel Ortega has named his wife as his running mate and candidate
for vice-president as he seeks re-election for a third term.
First Lady Rosario
Murillo already has a prominent role as the chief government spokeswoman and is
widely seen as sharing power with her husband.
She appears on
Nicaraguan television almost every day.
Critics accuse the
first couple of running Nicaragua - which has elections in November - like a
personal fiefdom.
While President
Ortega rarely speaks to the media, his wife is regularly seen on TV discussing
policy and promoting her own brand of New Age spirituality.
Mother of the
president's seven children, she is fluent in English and French in addition to
being a renowned poet.
She also has a
reputation for wearing colourfully extravagant outfits and jewellery more
commonly seen in the hippy 1960s.
Correspondents say
many Nicaraguans see Ms Murillo as wielding the most power in her country
because of her higher public profile.
Husband and wife
officially submitted their candidacy papers in the capital Managua, accompanied
by the legal adviser of their Sandinista party.
Hundreds of
Sandinista supporters cheered the couple when they left the building.
But opposition
supporters are concerned her promotion may herald the rise of a new family
dynasty in the impoverished Central American nation.
Mr Ortega, 70, is a
former left-wing guerrilla who formed part of the government junta following
the Sandinista revolution against the dictatorship of the Somoza family, which
ruled Nicaragua for four decades.
The Cuban-inspired
Sandinistas seized power in 1979.
The party lost
elections in the 1990s, but Mr Ortega returned to power in January 2007, after
a successful election campaign
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