Lucy Valenti, one of Cosip’s most vocal critics, has resigned as president of the National Chamber of Tourism

A few hours after Ortega’s threats, the National Chamber of Tourism (Canator) reports that Lucy Valente has resigned as chairman of the board, but although the reasons are not specified, the announcement takes place in the midst of persecution: Daniel Ortega’s dictatorship has been launched against private sector leaders.

In a statement of only two paragraphs, Canatore stated that “based on the current statutes of our Chamber, as of the date, Carlos W. Schotze, the current Vice President, will assume the position of President for the period 2020-2022.”

Valenti is one of the most recognizable faces of the Cosep and for several years has led business representation in the tourism sector in Nicaragua, and is also one of the women entrepreneurs who have promoted renewal in the direction of the largest corporate leadership in over a decade.

“On the pretext that businessmen should not get involved in politics and that this is the task of political parties and social movements, we were not put on the table as it should have, because the private sector is the only interlocutor with the government,” Valenti said in an interview with LA PRENSA on September 22, 2020.

In the same week, one of Ortega’s advocates warned that there were more concerns in Kosip and among the names mentioned by Valente.

The business leader was attacked by the dictatorship, keeping her son imprisoned, who was holed up at the Polytechnic University (Upoli) and the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN), where he was arrested in September 2019.

In June 2020, he was released, but until February 2021 Valenti denounced that the government had not yet returned the truck that the young man had seized upon his arrest.

The dictatorship is currently in its power Michael Healy, President of COZP, and Alvaro Vargas, Vice President of the organization. In Healy’s place, Cesar Zamora, who for years had been a staunch advocate of the José Adan Agori administration (today a political prisoner) and allying with the dictatorship through a model of dialogue and consensus, was promoted.