Ortega declares end to Nicaragua elections, blames US-backed opposition

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said the country would no longer hold elections, accusing the United States of backing opposition groups in an effort to remove his government.

Speaking in Managua on Sunday during celebrations marking the 47th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution, Ortega claimed opposition figures were continuing to organise against his administration despite the absence of armed conflict.

"Do not think that because there is no war we are at peace. They [the opposition] live there conspiring, organising, looking for ways to organise parties so that in an election, which they assume, then those parties win the elections," he said.

Ortega accused opposition groups of receiving political and financial support from the United States and said his government would work with the National Assembly on legislation targeting parties it associates with violence and the 2018 anti-government protests.

He said, "they will not see elections again so that they can try to seize the government that way," adding that "no matter how much money the Yankees give them, they will not be able" to take power.

His announcement effectively cancels Nicaragua's next presidential election, which had been scheduled for November 2027. Ortega did not explain how elections would be formally abolished.

Referring to the United States, Ortega said, "The diabolical beasts are always looking for ways to dominate peoples in order to steal the wealth that peoples have," while recalling past tensions between Washington and the governments of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.

He also revisited the 2018 unrest, accusing business leaders of abandoning agreements with his administration and joining what he described as a foreign-backed coup attempt.

The Nicaraguan government has consistently described the 2018 demonstrations as an attempted coup. International human rights organisations and the United Nations have accused the authorities of using force to suppress the protests, during which more than 300 people were killed.

Ortega returned to power in 2007 after previously serving as president during the 1980s.

Constitutional reforms that came into effect in 2025 formally established a co-presidency with his wife, Rosario Murillo. The changes also extended presidential terms from five to six years and expanded executive authority over state institutions.