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 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.