Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has announced that the country will no longer conduct elections, saying the decision is aimed at preventing opposition groups from returning to power.
Ortega made the declaration during celebrations marking the 47th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution.
He said his administration would work with the National Assembly to enact new laws that would strengthen measures against opposition groups, which he described as coup plotters and traitors.
“There will be no more elections here so that they can try to seize the government and seize power,” Ortega said during the event attended by thousands of state employees.
The 80-year-old leader, who has been in power since 2007, did not specify whether the 2027 elections would be cancelled entirely or whether opposition parties would be barred from participating.
In the 2021 elections, opposition parties were outlawed and several presidential candidates were jailed before the vote.
Political analysts described the announcement as a major escalation in Nicaragua’s political trajectory.
Tiziano Breda, a senior analyst at the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), said the move further entrenches what he described as a family-led political system under Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, who became co-president following constitutional reforms last year.
During his address, Ortega defended the decision by accusing opposition groups of being responsible for the 2018 anti-government protests, which his administration has consistently characterised as an attempted coup.
Human rights organisations and the United Nations have accused the government of violently suppressing the protests, resulting in hundreds of deaths, thousands of arrests and the displacement of large numbers of citizens.
Ortega also criticised the United States during the speech, alleging that Washington had carried out actions against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, which he described as “monstrous.”
His administration has faced sustained international criticism over its human rights record.
Rights groups have alleged that dozens of political prisoners remain in detention, hundreds of citizens have been stripped of their nationality, and thousands of non-governmental organisations, media outlets and universities have been shut down under Ortega’s government.
