SerpApi.Org
Nicaragua’s president has declared his government will no longer hold elections.
Daniel Ortega, who has held a tight grip on power in the Central American country since 2007, told a rally on Sunday that he would stay in power when his term ends next year and pledged to abolish voting.
“There will never be elections here again,” Mr Ortega, 80, said, as he accused his opponents of trying to use elections “to seize the government”.
Mr Ortega, who also served a presidential term in the 1980s, said the plan would close off any path for the opposition, in a move that would solidify the rule that he shares with his wife, Rosario Murillo.
Speaking on Sunday evening to commemorate the 1979 Sandinista revolution, in which Mr Ortega helped guerrillas overthrow the US-backed Anastasio Somoza dictatorship, he said: “The days when parties backed by the Yankees (United States) and the Somocistas would return to power are over – never again.”
Mr Ortega and Ms Murillo have been accused for much of the past two decades of rigging elections and killing protesters, as well as locking up dissidents, journalists and politicians.
The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Trump administration has described the Ortega government as a dictatorship, and imposed sanctions on more than 2,350 Nicaraguan officials and their relatives.
Nicaragua’s last election, in 2021, in which Mr Ortega won 76 per cent of the vote, was labelled a sham by human rights groups.
Last year, Mr Ortega further consolidated his power through a series of draconian constitutional reforms that included naming his wife as “co-president” and extending the presidential term to six years.
The pair control virtually every aspect of the government, including the armed forces and the judiciary.
The United Nations Human Rights Council has accused Mr Ortega and Mr Murillo of transforming the country “into an authoritarian state” and systematically violating human rights.
In 2018, Mr Ortega responded to widespread anti-government protests with a crackdown in which more than 300 people were killed.
Nicaragua had been expected to hold a presidential vote next year.
In Sunday’s speech, his first appearance in public for several months, Mr Ortega appeared unwell.
Felix Maradiaga, a presidential hopeful for the opposition who was jailed in Nicaragua from 2021 to 2023 before being expelled to the US, said Mr Ortega’s comments were “a confession of fear”.
“Ortega publicly acknowledged what has always been his true intention: to prevent his tyrannical project from being subjected to any form of democratic competition,” Mr Maradiaga said.
“Ortega buried Nicaraguan democracy a long time ago.”
He added: “This is simply a statement that unequivocally shows how the mask of a certain legality he had been trying to wear has fallen off.”
Mr Ortega had effectively squashed competition during prior reelections in 2011, 2016 and 2021, according to Salvador Marenco, coordinator of the Costa Rica-based Nicaragua Nunca Más Human Rights Collective.
Last year’s constitutional reforms had established a one-party system in a country where many opposition leaders have been jailed, intimidated into silence or exiled.
