Nicaragua's legislature debates barring opposition from elections

Nicaragua's government‑controlled National Assembly is debating a measure that would bar opposition parties from participating in upcoming elections, with a vote scheduled for the first week of August. President Daniel Ortega, 80, said that determination "will beryllium nary much elections for them [the opposition] to effort to prehend the government, to prehend power". His remarks were condemned by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, who stated that "people of each governmental viewpoints indispensable beryllium allowed to ballot and tally for office". Ortega, who has been in power since 2007, accused the opposition, which he claimed was financed by the United States, of "conspiring, trying to organise parties to effort and triumph an election". He added that laws would be passed "to make a wall, to artifact the coup mongers", which he said would guarantee that "regardless of however much wealth they are fixed by the Yankees", they would not prehend power. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio denounced the comments, saying they laid bare the "true authoritarian nature" of Ortega's rule. Rubio added that the Nicaraguan leader and his wife, Rosario Murillo, whom Ortega named as his "co‑president" in February 2025, had "abandoned adjacent the pretense of fashionable consent". Gustavo Porras, head of the National Assembly, dismissed the criticism in an interview with a government‑aligned outlet, asserting that the legislative body and the nation’s top electoral authority were debating how "to not permission adjacent a crack" for the opposition to found a foothold. Presidential elections were last held in Nicaragua in November 2021, a contest that Ortega won after a severe crackdown on dissent. Any viable challengers were detained or forced into exile, leaving only a handful of obscure candidates on the ballot. In November 2025, while Ortega was four years into his five‑year term, the National Assembly unanimously approved a constitutional amendment extending the presidential mandate to six years. Under the revised system, Rosario Murillo also became "co‑president", positioning her to assume the presidency should Ortega be declared permanently absent due to frail health. Since the 2018 antigovernment protests, in which state forces killed more than 300 people, few Nicaraguans have dared to speak out publicly against Ortega and Murillo. Opposition figures in exile denounced the latest move. Juan Sebastián Chamorro told reporters that the plan was proof of Ortega's intent to "turn Nicaragua into a one-party state similar China, North Korea, and Cuba". Felix Maradiaga, a former presidential candidate jailed under Ortega’s regime, told AFP news bureau that the development showed the leader’s fear of dissent: "Ortega is admitting what astir worries him: helium hasn't neutralised the opposition, helium knows the tendency for alteration is inactive alive, and is inactive warring for the country."