U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio looks on as President Donald Trump speaks at a press conference during the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, on June 17, 2026. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Nicaragua after its socialist leader, Daniel Ortega, announced that the Central American country will abolish elections.
“The Trump Administration and the international community will not stand by as the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship deepens repression at home and manufactures instability that threatens U.S. national security,” Rubio posted on X on July 21. “Ortega’s pledge to abolish elections in Nicaragua proves his cowardice and fear of the Nicaraguan people’s will.”
Rubio’s post comes after Ortega said on July 19 that Nicaragua will no longer allow voting.
“There won’t be any more elections here for them to try to seize the government and seize power,” Ortega said in an address commemorating the end of the U.S.-backed Anastasio Somoza dictatorship in 1979 by the Sandinistas.
“The days when parties backed by the Yankees [United States] and the Somocistas would return to power are over—never again,” he added.
Ortega, who has been in office since 2007 following a previous presidential term in the 1980s, said the development will block the opposition from taking back power. He did not say how he would enforce the ban.
The Trump administration, which calls the Ortega government a dictatorship, has imposed sanctions on more than 2,350 Nicaraguan officials and their relatives.
In 2021, Ortega detained opponents and business leaders and criminalized dissent as Nicaragua’s election was widely disputed. That was the last time the country held elections.
In 2025, Ortega further consolidated his power through constitutional reforms that included making his wife Rosario Murillo “co-president” and extending the presidential term to six years. He and his wife are effectively in charge of every part of the government, including the judiciary and armed forces.
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega (R) and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, during the commemoration of the 51st anniversary of the Pancasan guerrilla campaign, in Managua, on Aug. 29, 2018. Inti Ocon/AFP/Getty Images
The Nicaraguan government has been accused by the UN Human Rights Council of human rights violations and turning the nation “into an authoritarian state.”
In 2018, Ortega imposed a crackdown on nationwide anti-government protests that killed more than 300 people.
Félix Maradiaga, a presidential hopeful for the opposition who was jailed in Nicaragua between 2021 and 2023 before being exiled to the United States, told Reuters he viewed Ortega’s latest remarks less as a display of power than as “a confession of fear.”
“Ortega publicly acknowledged what has always been his true intention: to prevent his tyrannical project from being subjected to any form of democratic competition,” he said.
Reuters contributed to this report.
