Ortega says Nicaragua will hold no more elections

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said on Sunday that the country will no longer hold elections as a mechanism for the opposition to reach power. “There will be no more elections here for them to try to seize the government, to seize power,” he declared during the event marking the 47th anniversary of the Sandinista uprising that overthrew Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1979, held in Managua. Ortega, 80, has governed Nicaragua since 2007 and since 2017 has shared power with his wife, Rosario Murillo, named co-president in February 2025 following a constitutional reform pushed by the executive. That amendment extended the presidential term from five to six years and reorganized the structure of the state, meaning the next general elections would in theory be scheduled for November 2027. The reform was criticized by the UN, the Organization of American States, the European Union and the United States. In his speech, Ortega announced that he would work with the National Assembly —controlled by his party— to pass laws that would “put up a wall” against parties seeking to reach the government through elections. He did not specify how the change would take shape. While the statement does not immediately alter a known situation —international observers have for years reported the absence of real competition in Nicaraguan elections— it does mark an explicit shift in official rhetoric. In the 2021 presidential election, Ortega and Murillo jailed the main opposition candidates and claimed close to 76% of the vote, in a contest the United States and other governments did not recognize. Opposition figures in exile interpreted Ortega's words as confirmation of a dominant-party model. Juan Sebastián Chamorro, one of the presidential hopefuls jailed before the 2021 election, said the president aspires to a single-party system inspired by models such as China's. The Costa Rica-based group Nicaragua Nunca Más said the Sandinista Front has become a party with no real opposition within the country, and pointed to the closure of thousands of civil organizations, the cancellation of parties and the shuttering of media outlets. The announcement runs counter to Washington's policy, which since the 2018 crisis has conditioned any resolution on the restoration of democracy and free elections with international observation. In January, the State Department accused Murillo of having assumed the co-presidency without a mandate or legitimacy. Since 2018, the United States has imposed sanctions on dozens of officials and entities linked to Ortega's government. Top Comments Disclaimer & comment rulesNo comments for this story Please log in or register (it’s free!) to comment. Login with Facebook