Communist dictator of Nicaragua Daniel Ortega this week declared the end of elections in the Central American country — further cementing his decades-old rule.
Ortega made the announcement on Sunday at a regime event in Managua marking the 47th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution next to his wife Rosario Murillo, who serves as his regime’s dictatorial “co-president” since 2025. The announcement marked Ortega’s first public appearance in about two months.
The 80-year-old dictator announced that no more elections will take place in Nicaragua to eliminate the possibility of any democratic opposition to his communist regime, including prospective democratic parties with U.S. support. Ortega ruled Nicaragua for about 11 years from 1979 following the ouster of President Anastasio Somoza until 1990 — but then returned to power in 2007 and has been in control Nicaragua ever since.
“There will be no more elections here. There will be no more elections so that they [Nicaraguan opposition] can’t try to seize the government or seize power,” he said.
“We’re going to work with the National Assembly and the relevant organizations to pass laws — because we need to pass laws that will tie the hands of the coup plotters and the traitors, and ensure that no matter how much money the Yankees give them, they won’t be able to succeed,” he continued.
Ortega returned to power in 2007 during the so-called “pink tide” rise of leftist governments in Latin America that included the rise of the socialist regime in Venezuela of late dictator Hugo Chávez, a close ally of Ortega in life.
Since his return to power in 2007, Ortega managed to remain in power by means of sham elections and by brutally repressing any dissidence to his rule — most notably, during the April 2018 wave of anti-communist protests in Nicaragua, which the Ortega regime brutally repressed, leaving at least 355 dead according to the Organization of American States (OAS).
Ortega last held a fraudulent election in November 2021 — a fraudulent “electoral event” condemned at the time by the OAS as the “worst election possible.” Since then, Ortega has virtually eliminated all forms of dissent inside Nicaragua — including from his own brother Humberto Ortega, who was once a key member of his communist regime. Daniel Ortega has also relentlessly persecuted the Nicaraguan Catholic Church and has subjected political prisoners to inhumane conditions.
Last year, the communist dictator ordered a series of reforms to the nation’s constitution to further eliminate the separation of powers in Nicaragua and install his wife Rosario Murillo as “co-president,” a position that functionally grants her the same status in the communist dictatorship’s hierarchy as Ortega. The Ortega regime also granted itself the “legal” ability to strip Nicaraguan dissidents of their nationality — a form of punishment widely used by Ortega over the past years.
According to the regime-affiliated outlet El 19 Digital, Gustavo Porras, the head of Nicaragua’s sham National Assembly, confirmed that the communist-controlled parliament is already working on the required reforms to eliminate elections in Nicaragua.
According to Porras, the National Assembly will begin talks with the Nicaraguan electoral authorities — also controlled by Ortega — with the goal of “not leaving any room for the terrible manipulation of the empires and their lackeys to creep in.” Porras was sanctioned by the United States in 2019 over his role in the persecution of pro-democracy voices in Nicaragua.
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“Commander Daniel’s speech sums up the history of the Nicaraguan people; that statement, that there will never again be elections in this country that would allow them, the imperialists, the enemies of the people, to return to power, is unequivocal,” Porras reportedly said. “It is about defending the democracy of the Nicaraguan people.”
Unnamed sources claimed to the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa on Tuesday that Ortega’s plans go beyond eliminating elections. Per the sources, Ortega reportedly seeks to abolish the National Assembly and the Nicaraguan state as it is right now — replacing it with “1,500 deputies” who will work at a municipal level and only meet once per year.
“That annual meeting would be held to elect, when applicable, the president for a 10-year term. The executive body of this new Assembly would consist of 20 members. They would meet periodically,” the source reportedly told La Prensa.
“The reform will be ratified in January if the proposal currently under consideration is finalized,” the source continued.
The U.S. State Department responded to Ortega’s announcement with a Tuesday Call to Action statement emphasizing that the end of elections in Nicaragua lays bare “their true authoritarian nature.”
“The Nicaraguan people have the right to choose their own leaders through democratic elections. The United States calls on the international community to join forces to demonstrate to the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship that it cannot expect to maintain business as usual with other nations when it is thwarting the basic tenets of our democratic hemisphere,” the statement read.
Similarly, Albert Ramdin, Secretary-General of the OAS, released a statement condemning Ortega’s announcement, pointing out that the communist dictator has “abandoned democracy, even the pretense of it.” Ramdin stressed that free, fair, and periodic elections are an essential element of a representative democracy.
“The erosion of democracy in any country of the Americas is never solely a domestic matter. Attacks on democratic institutions at the national level have regional consequences, undermining democratic governance, and affecting the stability and shared values of the Hemisphere,” Ramdin said.
“The democratic rights of the Nicaraguan people remain inalienable, and this General Secretariat will continue to defend them,” he continued.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.