Nicaragua's Ortega says country will 'never again' hold elections

U.S. State Department denounces ‘family’s dictatorship’ after announcement

MEXICO CITY — President Daniel Ortega said Sunday that Nicaragua will no longer hold elections, an announcement that effectively canceled future national votes and reinforced the authoritarian government he leads with his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo.

“There won’t be anymore elections,” Ortega said in a speech marking the 47th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution that toppled the Somoza dictatorship in 1979. “Parties put in place by the Yankees, put in place by the Somoza regime, coming back to power — that story is over.”

The 80-year-old leader, who first came to power in the 1979 revolution and returned to the presidency in 2007, has since rewritten the constitution, crushed political opposition and solidified control over virtually all branches of government, according to multiple news reports.

The announcement drew immediate condemnation from the U.S. State Department, which called the move a rejection of democracy.

“Daniel Ortega’s declaration that, under his family’s dictatorship, Nicaragua will never again hold elections lays bare his true authoritarian nature,” the State Department said in a statement. “Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have abandoned even the pretense of popular consent.”

The Organization of American States also responded sharply. Secretary-General Albert Ramdin said in a statement on X that eliminating elections “constitutes the definitive denial of the people’s sovereign right to choose their government” and stressed that free, fair and periodic elections are not optional.

Ortega’s declaration effectively canceled Nicaragua’s next elections, which had been originally scheduled for November 2027 after the government-controlled Congress voted in January 2025 to extend the five-year presidential term by one year. Ortega did not explain how the decision to stop holding elections would be implemented or what would formally happen to the country’s electoral system, according to a report from United Press International.

Opponents and human rights groups said the announcement represents an escalation as Ortega further solidifies his grip on the country.

Juan Sebastián Chamorro, a 2021 presidential candidate who was imprisoned until he was released to the U.S. in 2023 along with more than 200 other political prisoners, told reporters the announcement reveals Ortega’s plan to consolidate power in the hands of the Sandinista party, similar to other one-party systems like China and Cuba.

“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 Latin America analyst at the independent conflict monitor ACLED. “Instead of staging a rigged election, they have opted to eliminate electoral competition altogether.”

Danny Ramírez Ayérdiz, a Nicaraguan lawyer and founder of the Interamerican Center for Legal Assistance in Human Rights, said the announcement “reveals the face of a dictatorship that, without any shame, has entrenched itself in power.” He said the move indicates a potentially higher level of repression against people who demand the removal of the government or the holding of elections.

At least 46 people are behind bars in Nicaragua for political reasons, according to the Mechanism for Recognition of Political Prisoners group, which tracks the cases. Nicaragua denies holding political prisoners.

MSI previously reported that in February, Nicaragua’s government suspended a visa exemption that had allowed Cuban citizens to enter the country without documentation, blocking a key pathway migrants used to reach the U.S. border. The government has also shuttered more than 5,000 organizations, largely religious, since 2018 and forced thousands to flee the country. Earlier in July, the Ortega-Murillo government stripped masses of lawyers of their licenses to practice in what U.N. experts called a “purge of the legal profession,” according to NPR.

In the wake of the U.S. military operation that captured Venezuela’s then-President Nicolás Maduro in a January raid, the Nicaraguan government said it would release more prisoners, apparently to stave off pressure on itself. But there has been no follow-up and little transparency on the issue, according to reports.

Ortega declared himself the winner of the 2021 election — a vote widely viewed as illegitimate by the international community — after jailing all candidates who could have possibly beaten him. The U.S. does not recognize Ortega’s presidency.