Those who oppose Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega increasingly find their citizenship revoked
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega says the country will never have another election. AFP

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said he is abolishing elections in the country, ending any pretense of democracy.

"There will never be elections here again," the 80-year-old Ortega said, according to The New York Times. Ortega also accused his opposition of attempting to use elections "to seize the government, to seize power."

Ortega's leftist government came to power 47 years ago. Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, co-rule the Central American nation of 7 million people.

The U.S. State Department swiftly condemned Ortega.

"Daniel Ortega's declaration that under his family's dictatorship Nicaragua will never again hold elections lays bare their true authoritarian nature. Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have abandoned even the pretense of popular consent," the State Department said.

"The Nicaraguan people have the right to choose their own leaders through democratic elections. The United States calls on the international community to join forces to demonstrate to the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship that it cannot expect to maintain business as usual with other nations when it is thwarting the basic tenets of our democratic hemisphere," the government added.

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A presidential election was expected to take place next year in Nicaragua. The NYT added that the couple has been accused of a variety of oppressive measures, including rigging elections, killing protesters, and jailing critics.

"Ortega buried Nicaraguan democracy a long time ago," Félix Maradiaga, a former 2021 presidential candidate told the New York Times. Maradiago was exiled to the U.S. after being forced out of the race and arrested. "This is simply a statement that unequivocally shows how the mask of a certain legality he had been trying to wear has fallen off."

Following the 2021 presidential election, the Biden administration said that the election was illegitimate, Fox News reported. Aside from arresting and harassing opponents, the government also criminalized dissent in the lead-up to the election.

In 2018, Ortega's government violently cracked down on protestors in the country, killing at least 300 people, Fox News reported.

"As long as Daniel Ortega controls the Nicaraguan state, Nicaragua cannot have free elections," Maradiaga told the New York Times.