The Sandinista regime: Daniel Ortega ruled out calling elections in Nicaragua to avoid a victory for the opposition

“Let them forgethere (in Nicaragua) there will no longer be elections so that they can try to capture the government and capture power,” declared Ortega when referring to his opponents at an event for the 47th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution, held in Managua.

Ortega, 80, governed in the 1980s and returned to power in 2007. Since then he has held power, after disputed elections or with measures that annulled his rivals, with his wife Rosario Murillo.

Nicaragua was going to hold general elections next November, but a year and a half ago a profound constitutional reform extended the presidential term from five to six years, so the elections should be held in November 2027.

Ortega and Murillo govern Nicaragua with absolute power and strong control over Nicaraguan society, especially after the 2018 protests, whose repression left more than 300 dead, according to the UN.

Opponents were imprisoned or forced into exilestripped of their nationality and property, as well as journalists, intellectuals and religious critics of the government. Thousands of Nicaraguans live as refugees in Costa Rica, Spain and the United States.

Opposition movements in exile have expressed hope that international pressure will achieve a transition or free elections in Nicaragua.

“They have been conspiring (…) looking for how to organize parties so that in an election that they assume, then those parties win the elections,” said Ortega, before thousands of followers gathered in a square in Managua.

However, “here the story ends that the games set by the Yankees “(The United States) will come to government again, never, ever, ever,” the president added.

Ortega, at the public event with his wife and some of his children, He announced that laws will be approved to stop the opposition.

“We are going to work with the National Assembly and with the corresponding organizations, because Laws must be made that put a wall, a block to the coup plotters, to the sell-outs.and that no matter how much money the Yankees give them, they will not be able to come to power, he stated.

In February 2025, a reform to the Political Constitution came into force in Nicaragua that annulled the independence of powers and granted full power to Ortega and Murillo, whose rank was elevated from vice president to co-president.

The Nicaraguan president had not appeared in public for two months. He arrived at this Sunday’s event driving a car.

In recent months he had been seen at public events with difficulty walking.

Opponents claim that Murillo carries out an internal purge in all State institutions in the event of the death of Ortega, who suffers from lupus and kidney failure.

Both accuse the opposition of “betrayal of the country” and of seeking to carry out a coup d’état, as in the massive protests of 2018. They also blame international organizations, which point them to serious human rights violations, of “interferencers” and “liars”.

Ortega is a former guerrilla member of the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), which overthrew the 42-year dictatorship of the Somoza family in July 1979.