Nicaragua's Ortega says 'never again' for elections after two decades in power

Highlights:

• Ortega is serving his fourth straight term since taking power in 2007
• UN council has accused the government of systematic abuses and authoritarian rule
• Ortega gave no details on how voting would be formally scrapped

Nicaragua's long-serving president Daniel Ortega said the Central American country will 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 will 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 said in a speech on Sunday evening to commemorate the 1979 Sandinista revolution, in which Ortega helped overthrow the US-backed Anastasio Somoza dictatorship.

"The days when parties backed by the Yankees (United States) and the Somocistas would return to power are over - never again," he added, in the 80-year-old's first public appearance in two months.

The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Trump administration has described the Ortega 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 opponents and business leaders and criminalised dissent.

Last year, Ortega further consolidated his power through 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 virtually every aspect of the government, including the armed forces and the judiciary.

The UN Human Rights Council has accused Ortega and Murillo's government of transforming the country "into an authoritarian state" and systematically violating human rights. In 2018, Ortega responded to widespread anti-government protests with a crackdown in which more than 300 people were killed.

Analysts and opposition politicians in exile said the declaration put into focus the reality of two-person rule under the Ortegas, while revealing the couple's fear of an opposition movement taking root.

"Ortega and Murillo are evidently afraid at the idea that the slightest political opening could create the conditions for dissent to manifest and threaten their grip on power," said Tiziano Breda, a senior analyst at Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, a nonprofit that tracks political violence. "Instead of staging a rigged election, they have opted to eliminate electoral competition altogether."

The country has transformed into a "full-fledged, family-run dictatorship," he added.

Felix Maradiaga, a presidential hopeful for the opposition who was jailed in Nicaragua from 2021 to 2023 before being expelled to the US, said he saw Ortega's comments less as a show of force than as "a confession of fear."

"Ortega publicly acknowledged what has always been his true intention: to prevent his tyrannical project from being subjected to any form of democratic competition," Maradiaga told Reuters.

Ortega had already effectively squashed competition during prior re-elections of 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.

Ortega, he said, is trying to "avoid the risk of an electoral defeat, because he knows that the people reject him."