Nicaragua’s president says country will no longer hold elections

Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega has said the country will no longer hold elections to prevent the opposition from taking power, according to local newspaper Confidencial on Monday.

The 80-year-old leader, in office since 2007, also vowed to introduce laws that would "build a wall" against the opposition through the National Assembly he controls.

He made the announcement during celebrations marking the 47th anniversary of the 1979 Sandinista revolution, which overthrew the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza.

Speaking before thousands of state employees, Ortega declared: “There will be no more elections here so that they (the opposition parties) can try to seize the government, seize power.”

Ortega, who had not appeared in public for 61 days, added: “We will work with the National Assembly and the relevant institutions on laws, because we need laws that build a wall, a barrier, against the coup plotters and the traitors who sell out their country.”

Although elections are scheduled for next year, Ortega gave no indication of whether they would be cancelled or whether opposition parties would simply remain excluded, as they were in 2021 when his government banned parties and imprisoned all major opposition presidential candidates.

Last year, Ortega approved constitutional changes extending the presidential term from five to six years and elevating his wife, Rosario Murillo, from vice-president to co-president.

The US State Department describes the government as the "Murillo-Ortega dictatorship."

During the speech, Ortega also criticized the US over the January operation that resulted in the abduction of former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, calling it "monstrous."

He argued that blocking the opposition was necessary to prevent the return of the "coup plotters" he blames for the 2018 protests, after which UN-linked organizations say his government killed more than 350 people, injured hundreds, imprisoned thousands, and forced nearly one million Nicaraguans into exile.