The deterioration in the health of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is creating alarm in Nicaragua, which is highly dependent on economic aid and trade with its unconditional leftist ally.
"Nicaragua's enormous dependency on Venezuela has put us in a very risky situation," former deputy foreign minister Victor Hugo Tinoco, who heads the parliamentary group of the dissident Sandinista Renovation Movement, told dpa.
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his official spokeswoman and wife, Rosario Murillo, have remained silent on Chavez's cancer, only saying they were praying for "our beloved comrade, the commander president."
The government even organized a music and dance festival at Managua's Revolution Square to pay tribute to "Liberator Chavez," as Ortega called him after he was operated on in Cuba.
Legislators close to the government avoid the subject, while opposition representatives such as Tinoco have warned of the possible consequences for Nicaragua if Chavez is unable to continue as president.
Venezuelan economic aid to Nicaragua amounted to 2.3 billion dollars between January 2007 and June 2012, the equivalent of 23 per cent of gross domestic product, economist Nestor Avendano estimated in the weekly Confidencial.
Parliament has not been informed about the aid in detail.
It is known, however, that about 80 per cent of Nicaragua's electricity consumption is based on oil which Caracas has sold to Managua for throwaway prices for almost six years now.
Venezuela also subsidizes Nicaragua's transport system, electricity tariff as well as social programmes which have boosted Ortega's popularity.
Oil has been flowing into Nicaragua since it joined the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) in 2007. It is marketed by companies operating under the control of officials close to Ortega, such as his faithful collaborator Francisco Lopez, who heads the state oil company Petronic.
Venezuelan aid has helped Nicaragua - the second-poorest country in the Americas after Haiti - to stabilize its economy.
Nicaragua now has gross international reserves worth more than 1.8 billion dollars, while inflation has remained at one-digit levels, earning the country praise from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Venezuela not only gives aid to Nicaragua, but it is also the country's top trading partner after the United States.
In 2012, Nicaragua sold beef worth 185 million dollars to Venezuela, a sum making up 8 per cent of total exports.
Nicaragua also earned 400 million dollars from exports of other products to Venezuela, such as cattle, milk, red beans, coffee, cooking oil, sugar and wood.
If Venezuela were to get a new leader unwilling to maintain the current economic agreements with Nicaragua, that would deal a big blow to the country's agricultural and livestock sector, said Felipe Arguello of the farmers' and cattle breeders' union Upanic.
A change of leadership in Venezuela could also halt the construction in Nicaragua of the oil refinery Supreme Dream of Bolivar, whose cost Chavez estimated at 4 billion dollars, but which has only received investments worth 100 million dollars until now.
The concern in Managua has been reflected by caricaturists, one of whom depicted Nicaragua as a piece of paper tied to the foot of a Chavez lying sick in bed.
Ortega's economic advisor Bayardo Arce admitted the possibility of the Venezuelan leader dying of cancer.
However, he said he had "no doubts" that if Chavez were succeeded by current Vice-President Nicolas Maduro, Vanezuela "would maintain the same cooperation with Nicaragua."