Nicaragua’s long-serving President, Daniel Ortega, has announced that the Central American nation will no longer hold elections, eliminating the possibility of any electoral challenge when his current term expires next year and further cementing the rule he shares with his wife.
Ortega, who has remained in power since returning to office in 2007 after previously serving as president in the 1980s, said the decision would permanently block the opposition from regaining power, although he did not explain how the measure would be implemented.
“There won’t be any more elections here for them to try to seize the government and seize power,” Ortega said during a speech on Sunday marking the anniversary of the 1979 Sandinista revolution, which saw him help overthrow the US-backed dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza.
“The days when parties backed by the Yankees (United States) and the Somocistas would return to power are over – never again,” he added, making his first public appearance in two months.
The US State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The administration of President Donald Trump has previously described Ortega’s government as a dictatorship and imposed sanctions on more than 2,350 Nicaraguan officials and their relatives.
Nicaragua’s 2021 general election was widely condemned after Ortega’s administration jailed opposition figures and business leaders while criminalising dissent.
In 2025, Ortega tightened his grip on power through constitutional reforms that elevated his wife, Rosario Murillo, to the position of “co-president” and extended the presidential term to six years. The couple now exercises extensive control over the country’s institutions, including the military and judiciary.
The UN Human Rights Council has accused the Ortega-Murillo administration of turning Nicaragua “into an authoritarian state” through systematic human rights violations.
Following anti-government protests in 2018, a government crackdown left more than 300 people dead.
Political analysts and exiled opposition figures said Ortega’s latest declaration confirms the reality of a two-person government while exposing concerns about any future political challenge.
“Ortega and Murillo are evidently afraid at the idea that the slightest political opening could create the conditions for dissent to manifest and threaten their grip on power,” said Tiziano Breda, a senior analyst at Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, a nonprofit that monitors political violence. “Instead of staging a rigged election, they have opted to eliminate electoral competition altogether.”
The country has transformed into a “full-fledged, family-run dictatorship,” he added.
Felix Maradiaga, an opposition presidential hopeful who was imprisoned in Nicaragua between 2021 and 2023 before being expelled to the United States, said Ortega’s remarks reflected fear rather than strength.
“Ortega publicly acknowledged what has always been his true intention: to prevent his tyrannical project from being subjected to any form of democratic competition,” Maradiaga told Reuters.
According to Salvador Marenco, coordinator of the Costa Rica-based Nicaragua Nunca Más Human Rights Collective, Ortega had already eliminated meaningful electoral competition during his previous re-election victories in 2011, 2016 and 2021.
Marenco added that the constitutional reforms introduced last year had effectively established a one-party system, with opposition leaders forced into exile.
Ortega, he said, is trying to “avoid the risk of an electoral defeat, because he knows that the people reject him.”
