The best hope for Nicaragua’s democratic opposition may simply be time, as Ortega is now 80 years old and in questionable health.

Old dictators, despots, and authoritarian leaders don’t often step down. A significant number of autocrats manage to retain power until the very end of their lives, even as modern medicine has done much to extend them. For every Augusto Pinochet and Hosni Mubarak—two examples of despots who could have attempted to remain in office through mass violence but voluntarily relinquished control—there were men like Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Francisco Franco, who remained in office until their deaths.

Nicaraguan strongman Daniel Ortega, who is now 80 years old, appears intent on following the path of the latter group. This week, he announced that he would abolish the nation’s elections in an effort to maintain his grip on the country of 7 million.

“There will never be elections here again,” Ortega said during a government rally on Sunday in honor of the 47th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution, which toppled the former right-wing dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza in 1979 and brought him to power.

Ortega’s First Time in Power Wasn’t Great, Either

Ortega ruled Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, first serving as the coordinator of the Junta of National Reconstruction from 1979 to 1985 and then as president from 1985 to 1990. During much of this time, Nicaragua was embroiled in a brutal civil war between Ortega’s Sandinistas and the US-supported Contra rebels. An attempt by Congress to end US support to the Contras following human rights violations led to the Iran-Contra scandal, in which the administration of President Ronald Reagan tried to circumvent congressional restrictions by supplying the Contras using funds obtained by secretly selling weapons to Iran.

The civil war ended in 1990 after both sides agreed to a truce and free elections. Ortega unexpectedly lost those elections to opposition unity candidate Violeta Chamorro. A number of factors prevented him from attempting to cling to power—chiefly the terminal post-1989 decline of the Soviet Union, his main foreign sponsor.

Ortega spent the next 17 years in opposition, plotting a comeback. He reassumed the presidency in 2007, and in the years since has slowly but steadily crushed political opposition to solidify control, including rewriting the nation’s constitution, rigging elections, dismantling institutions and jailing critics, journalists and opposition politicians. Not even longtime loyalists have survived.

Ortega and his wife, co-President Rosario Murillo, faced mass protests in 2018, which were followed by a bloody government crackdown that killed hundreds. Now Ortega seeks to ensure that he maintains control of the Central American nation.

Ortega Says He’ll Cancel Nicaragua’s 2027 Elections

During Nicaragua’s 2021 election, Ortega jailed all of his prospective opponents, then cruised to easy victory. International observers including the Organization of American States (OAS) and the European Union described the election as a sham.

On Sunday, Ortega appears to have decided that he had no interest in rerunning the pretense.

“[Political] parties put in place by the Yankees, put in place by the Somoza regime, coming back to power—that story is over,” he told supporters. “Never, never, never.”

Félix Maradiaga, a Nicaraguan opposition candidate in the 2021 election who was arrested that year and expelled to the United States in 2023, noted that the development was essentially a recognition of facts on the ground.

“Ortega buried Nicaraguan democracy a long time ago,” Maradiaga told The New York Times. “This is simply a statement that unequivocally shows how the mask of a certain legality he had been trying to wear has fallen off. As long as Daniel Ortega controls the Nicaraguan state, Nicaragua cannot have free elections.”

Maduro’s Fate a Cautionary Tale for Ortega?

Operation Absolute Resolve, the US military operation in Venezuela in January in which US special forces snatched President Nicolás Maduro and brought him to face trial in the United States on drug trafficking charges, likely sent the wrong message to Ortega.

Maduro’s ouster came about at least in part because he lost Venezuela’s 2024 election to opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, then attempted to cover up the result in what international observers described as “one of the most egregious electoral frauds in modern Latin American history.” By holding an obviously fraudulent election, Maduro could have provided a justification for the Trump administration to grab him; Ortega might be attempting to head off that risk.

In any event, Ortega has less cause for worry than Maduro did. Unlike Venezuela, Nicaragua lacks major natural resources such as oil, and that could keep the nation off of US President Donald Trump’s radar. That is likely to remain true as the US is bogged down with a seemingly unwinnable war with Iran on the other side of the world.

“The lesson from Nicaragua is: Don’t matter too much, don’t embarrass Washington and don’t become a domestic political issue,” Juan Gonzalez, a former Latin America aide to then-President Joe Biden, told Politico in January. “For an administration that doesn’t care about democracy or human rights, that’s an effective survival strategy for authoritarians.”

What Happens After Ortega Dies?

For Nicaraguans, the best hope for political change is the inevitability of time: Daniel Ortega is 80 and may not live much longer.

Franco was 82 when he died in 1975, and Mao was the same age when death took him in 1976. Ortega has already lived longer than Stalin, who was 74 when he died of an intracerebral hemorrhage in 1953. The Nicaraguan strongman has also had past health issues, including a reported heart attack, which suggest his time may be limited.

Of course, those hopes may be premature. At the other end of the spectrum, Cameroonian President Paul Biya, age 93, has been in power for 43 years—most recently “winning re-election” in 2025—and still appears in relatively good health.

The final issue is whether co-President Rosario Murillo can hold on to power on her own after Ortega goes on to join Franco, Stalin, Mao, and their other contemporaries in the hereafter. Women have struggled to do so in the past; Jiang Qing, Mao’s widow and a powerful Chinese Politburo member, was swiftly arrested by the new government after the Great Helmsman’s death, while Argentine dictator Juan Peron’s widow and presidential successor Isabel Peron was overthrown by a military junta less than two years after taking office. With such a track record, it might be wise for Murillo to pick up a copy of Frommer’s Best Places to Go into Exile, just in case.

About the Author: Peter Suciu

Peter Suciu has contributed to dozens of newspapers, magazines and websites over a 30-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a contributing writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. He is based in Michigan. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.

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