SerpApi.Org
July 21 (UPI) -- The United States accused Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his wife and co-president, Rosario Murillo, of leading a "dictatorship" after Ortega announced that the Central American country "will no longer hold elections."
During a speech Sunday in Managua marking the 47th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution victory, Ortega announced that Nicaragua will no longer hold democratic elections, even though the country's next balloting had been scheduled for 2027.
"They should forget about it. There will be no more elections here so they (the opposition) can try to seize the government and seize power," he said.After the announcement, the U.S. State Department condemned Ortega and Murillo for abandoning democracy and promoting authoritarianism.
"Daniel Ortega's declaration that, under his family's dictatorship, Nicaragua will never again hold elections lays bare his true authoritarian nature. Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have abandoned even the pretense of popular consent," the State Department said in a public statement.
President Donald Trump's administration said Nicaraguans have the right to choose their own leaders through democratic elections, and it asked other countries to protest the announcement.
"The United States calls on the international community to unite and demonstrate that the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship cannot expect to maintain normal relations with other nations while undermining the fundamental principles of our democratic hemisphere," it said.
The 80-year-old Nicaraguan president, who was in power from 1979 to 1990 and has governed again since 2007, seeks to prevent the opposition from gaining control through the ballot box. He accused its members of being backed by the United States, which he criticized for the way it has acted toward Nicolás Maduro.
"The days when parties installed by the Yankees, installed by the Somocistas, could return to power are over," he said.
Nicaragua had been scheduled to hold presidential elections at the end of 2026. However, last year, the ruling party approved a constitutional reform extending the presidential term from five to six years and postponing elections until 2027.
The same reform strengthened the executive branch's powers and created the position of co-president, allowing Rosario Murillo to formally share power.
Ortega did not explain how the decision to stop holding elections will be implemented or what will formally happen to the country's electoral system.
However, he said he will work with the National Assembly, controlled by the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front, or FSLN, to prevent his political opponents from returning to power.
"The Nicaraguan regime has now made explicit what its actions had long demonstrated: it has abandoned democracy, even the appearance of it," the organization's secretary-general, Albert Ramdin, said on X.
He said 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.
"The erosion of democracy in any country in the Americas is never an exclusively domestic matter. Attacks on democratic institutions at the national level have regional consequences, undermine democratic governance and affect the stability and shared values of the Hemisphere," Ramdin said.
The announcement also drew criticism from organizations and opposition leaders both inside and outside Nicaragua. The Nicaragua Nunca Más collective, which operates from Costa Rica, said the government has stripped civil society of its rights and eliminated spaces for political participation.
"The Sandinista Front has effectively become a single party, with no real opposition inside Nicaragua," Salvador Marenco, coordinator of the organization, told CNN.
Nicaraguan attorney Danny Ramírez, founder of the Inter-American Center for Legal Assistance in Human Rights, said the country's current situation reveals the face of a dictatorship that has now entrenched itself in power without any shame.
He also expressed concern over possible reprisals against people who demand that the government leave power or call for electoral processes.
