HRF condemns Daniel Ortega’s announcement that Nicaragua will no longer hold elections, marking the regime’s latest assault on democracy. By openly rejecting future elections, the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship has abandoned any remaining façade of democratic legitimacy. Democracies must increase pressure to hold the regime accountable.

Ortega declared that there would “never be elections here again” and announced his party will work towards laws targeting so-called “traitors” and “coup plotters.” His statement confirms that the regime no longer seeks to preserve even the semblance of a democratic system after years of fraudulent elections and constitutional changes designed to consolidate absolute power.

Nicaragua is a fully authoritarian regime where independent voices are systematically persecuted. The Ortega-Murillo dictatorship has imprisoned and exiled political opponents, journalists, and religious leaders, stripped hundreds of critics of their citizenship, dismantled thousands of civil society organizations, and criminalized all forms of dissent to maintain total control.

The abolition of elections is the latest step in the Ortega-Murillo regime’s systematic dismantling of democracy and the rule of law. Democracies must reject this authoritarian consolidation, increase pressure on the dictatorship, and call for a democratic transition in Nicaragua.