In Nicaragua, President Daniel Ortega has declared his nation will no longer hold elections. Ortega made the announcement during a Sunday evening speech in Managua commemorating the 1979 Sandinista Revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Anastasio ⁠Somoza.

President Daniel Ortega: “There won’t be ⁠⁠any more elections here for them to try to seize the government and seize power. … The days when parties backed by the Yankees and the Somocistas would return to power are over. Never again.”

It was Ortega’s first public appearance in two months. In 2021, he secured a fourth term as president following a monthslong crackdown on dissent, during which dozens of opposition figures, including seven presidential hopefuls, were arrested. A United Nations report earlier this year found President Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo, whom he named co-president, eliminated all checks and balances on their power to build an authoritarian state in Nicaragua.