Nicaragua's Ortega declares end to elections, vows to block opposition from power permanently

The announcement

Daniel Ortega, who has governed Nicaragua since 2007 alongside his wife and co-president Rosario Murillo, declared on Sunday that there would be no more elections in the country. Speaking at a government rally marking the 47th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution, the 80-year-old former guerrilla told the crowd that the opposition should forget any path to power through the ballot box.

Ya quisieran ellos ganar elecciones para hacer reales con las escuelas. Que se olviden, aquí no volverá a haber elecciones.

The remarks drew scant applause, according to The New York Times. Ortega accused opposition parties of wanting to win elections in order to enrich themselves from the public sector and of receiving funding from the United States, whom he referred to as "the Yankees."

Legal and political shift

Ortega said he would work with the National Assembly, which his Sandinista National Liberation Front controls, to erect a legal wall against opponents. He framed the move as a permanent block against what he called "coup-plotters" and "traitors" backed by Washington.

Y vamos a trabajar con las asambleas nacionales y con las organizaciones correspondientes. Hay que hacer las leyes que les pongan un muro, un bloque a los golpistas, a los vendepatrias.

Although Nicaragua's elections have been marred by successive frauds since 2008, according to international electoral observation bodies cited by EL PAÍS, the explicit disavowal of elections marks a discursive and political escalation. Presidential elections had been scheduled for November 2027, a date already pushed back after the Ortega-controlled legislature extended the co-presidents' mandate.

A history of dismantling democracy

Ortega and Murillo have exercised complete control over the Central American nation of seven million people for years. Human rights groups and the United Nations have documented manipulated elections, dismantled institutions, the killing of protesters, and the persecution of dissidents, journalists, religious figures, and opposition politicians. During the 2021 presidential election, all opposition pre-candidates with a realistic chance of competing were imprisoned, and Ortega and Murillo claimed 75.92% of the vote. The United States called that election a "pantomime."

Desde hace dos décadas el derecho a elegir está secuestrado.

Juan Diego Barberena, an exiled opposition lawyer, noted that the novelty is not that elections have ceased to be free, but that Ortega is now openly discarding the electoral mechanism entirely.

International implications

EL PAÍS reported that Ortega's move points toward an electoral model closer to hegemonic single-party regimes or permanent-power systems such as North Korea and Cuba, where elections formally exist but do not constitute a real mechanism for contesting power. The shift puts Ortega on a direct collision course with Washington, which has consistently demanded free elections for Nicaragua. The New York Times described the pronouncement as marking an explicit end to any pretense that Nicaragua remained a democracy.