Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said the Central American country would no longer hold elections, eliminating the possibility of an electoral challenge when his term ends next year and further entrenching the rule he shares with his wife.Ortega, who has continuously held power since 2007 following an earlier presidential term in the 1980s, said the move would close off any path to the opposition, although he did not provide details about carrying out the ban.“There won’t be any more elections here for them to try to seize the government and seize power,” Ortega, 80, said in a speech on Sunday evening to commemorate the 1979 Sandinista revolution, in which he helped overthrow the US-backed Anastasio Somoza dictatorship.
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega attends a meeting of leaders of the member states of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America and the Treaty of Commerce and Promotion in Caracas on Dec. 14, 2024.
“The days when parties backed by the Yankees [United States] and the Somocistas would return to power are over — never again,” he said in his first public appearance in two months.The US Department of State did not immediately respond to a request for comment. US President Donald Trump’s administration has described the Ortega government as a dictatorship, and imposed sanctions on more than 2,350 Nicaraguan officials and their relatives.
