Nicaragua’s Ortega says ‘never again’ for elections after two decades in power
July 20 (Reuters) – Nicaragua’s long-serving president Daniel Ortega said the Central American country will no longer hold elections, eliminating the possibility of an election fight when his term ends next year and further cementing the rule he shares with his wife.
Ortega, who has been in power continuously since 2007 after a previous term as president in the 1980s, did not provide details on the implementation of the ban but said the move would close off any avenue to opposition.
“There will be no more elections here that will try to seize the government and seize power,” Ortega said Sunday evening in a speech commemorating the 1979 Sandinista revolution in which Ortega helped overthrow the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza. he said.
“The days when parties supported by the Yankees (USA) and the Somocistas will return to power are over; never again,” the 80-year-old artist added in his first public appearance in two months.
The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Trump administration described Ortega’s government as a dictatorship and imposed sanctions on more than 2,350 Nicaraguan officials and their relatives.
Nicaragua’s last election in 2021 was widely disputed after Ortega detained dissidents and businessmen and criminalized dissent.
Last year, Ortega further consolidated his power with a series of constitutional reforms that included naming his wife, Rosario Murillo, as “co-president” and extending the presidential term to six years. He and his wife control nearly every aspect of the government, including the armed forces and the judiciary.
The UN Human Rights Council accused Ortega and Murillo’s government of turning the country into an “authoritarian state” and systematically violating human rights. Ortega responded to widespread anti-government protests in 2018 with a crackdown that killed more than 300 people.
Exiled analysts and opposition politicians said the declaration focused on the reality of two-man rule under Ortegas and exposed the couple’s fears of an opposition movement taking root.
“Ortega and Murillo are clearly afraid of the idea that the slightest political opening could create the conditions for opposition to manifest and threaten their grip on power,” said Tiziano Breda, senior analyst at Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, a nonprofit that tracks political violence. “Instead of staging a rigged election, they chose to eliminate electoral competition altogether.”
He added that the country had become a “full-fledged, family-run dictatorship.”
Felix Maradiaga, an opposition presidential candidate who was imprisoned in Nicaragua from 2021 to 2023 before being deported to the United States, said he viewed Ortega’s comments as “an admission of fear” rather than a show of strength.
“Ortega has publicly acknowledged what has always been his true intention: to prevent his tyrannical project from being exposed to any form of democratic competition,” Maradiaga told Reuters.
Ortega had effectively crushed the competition in previous re-elections in 2011, 2016 and 2021, according to Salvador Marenco, coordinator of the Costa Rica-based Nicaragua Nunca Más Human Rights Collective.
And last year’s constitutional reforms had already established a one-party system in a country where opposition leaders no longer exist because they have been exiled.
He said Ortega “was trying to avoid the risk of electoral defeat because he knew the people rejected him.”
(Reporting by Raul Cortes and Gabriela Selser; Writing by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez; Editing by Daina Beth Solomon, Nia Williams and Lincoln Feast)
