Superior Council for Private Enterprise

The Superior Council for Private Enterprise (Consejo Superior de la Empresa Privada, or COSEP) is a leading business chamber in Nicaragua. As of April 2018, its president is José Adán Aguerri.[1]

COSEP is/was the main organization of Nicaraguan big business, and at least in the late 20th century was said to be composed of prosperous families from the Pacific coast cities, who dominated commerce and banking.[2]

During the Sandinista revolution (1979–1990), COSEP opposed the Sandinistas’ economic policies.[3] Later, in 1990 when the candidate of the National Opposition Union (UNO), Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, defeated Sandanista Daniel Ortega for president, COSEP was one of the alliance of 14 opposition groups that made up UNO.

But when the (allegedly) more pragmatic Ortega was elected president (starting in 2007), COSEP worked in cooperation with him. The arrangement is said to have led to Nicaragua having "the fastest-growing economy in Central America" and being a "poster child for foreign investment and citizen security in a region known for gangs and unrest".[4] This ended in April 2018 when Ortega's unpopular decree to "unilaterally overhaul the social-security tax system"[4] broke his arrangement with COSEP,[4] (along with precipitating the bloody 2018–2020 Nicaraguan protests).[5][6]

References
  1. Bejarano, Manuel (April 11, 2018). "Cosep: solución al INSS no debe afectar competitividad y la formalidad". El Nuevo Diario (in Spanish). Retrieved 23 April 2018.
  2. Baumeister, Eduardo. "The politics of land reform" in Close, David; Marti i Puig, Salvador; McConnell, Shelley, eds. (2012). The Sandinistas & Nicaragua Since 1979. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. p. 250. ISBN 978-1-58826-798-6 – via EBSCOHost.
  3. DeFronzo, James (2011). Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements (4th ed.). Boulder: Westview Press. p. 264. ISBN 9780813344805.
  4. Rogers, Tim (6 June 2018). "The Unraveling of Nicaragua". The Atlantic. Retrieved 13 July 2020.
  5. Gallón, Natalie (18 June 2020). "'There are two realities.' What is really happening in Nicaragua during the pandemic?". CNN. Retrieved 13 July 2020.
  6. Gies, Heather (22 April 2018). "At least 10 killed as unrest intensifies in Nicaragua". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 25 April 2018.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.