Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega bans elections after decades in power

Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega has announced that the country will no longer hold elections, saying the move is necessary to stop the opposition from returning to power.

Speaking during celebrations marking the 47th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution, Ortega said his government would work with the National Assembly to pass new laws that would “build a wall” against opposition groups, whom he described as coup plotters and traitors.

“There will be no more elections here so that they can try to seize the government and seize power,” Ortega said during the event, which was attended by thousands of state employees.

The 80-year-old leader, who has been in office since 2007, did not clarify whether the 2027 elections would be cancelled or whether opposition parties would simply be barred from participating. In the 2021 elections, opposition parties were outlawed and presidential candidates were jailed before the vote.

Analysts described the announcement as a significant escalation in Nicaragua’s political direction. Tiziano Breda, a senior analyst at the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), said the move effectively cements the country’s transition into a family dictatorship under Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, who was appointed co-president after constitutional reforms last year.

During his speech, Ortega defended the decision by accusing opposition groups of being responsible for the 2018 anti-government protests, which his administration has repeatedly described as an attempted coup. Human rights organisations and the United Nations have accused the government of violently suppressing those protests, resulting in hundreds of deaths, thousands of arrests, and nearly one million people fleeing the country.

Ortega also criticised the United States during the address, alleging that Washington carried out an operation against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and describing it as “monstrous.”

His government has faced sustained international criticism over its human rights record. According to rights organisations, dozens of political prisoners remain in detention, hundreds of people have been stripped of their citizenship, and thousands of non-governmental organisations, media outlets and universities have been shut down under Ortega’s administration.