Nicaragua’s constitution provides for a directly elected president, and elections are held every five years. Constitutional reforms in 2014 eliminated term limits and required the winner of the presidential ballot to secure a simple plurality of votes. Daniel Ortega was first elected in 2006.

In 2020, the National Assembly, which is controlled by the Ortega-led Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), passed the Law in Defense of the Rights of the People to Independence, Sovereignty and Self-Determination for Peace, also known as the Sovereignty Law. The law provides authorities with a broad framework to arbitrarily detain, investigate, and ban individuals from running for or holding public office. The Ortega regime has used this law to arrest opposition candidates and government critics.

Following the 2021 general election, the government announced that Ortega had been reelected to a fourth consecutive term, allegedly taking 75 percent of the votes. Authorities claimed voter turnout was 65 percent, but a local citizen-run election watchdog recorded that turnout was closer to 18.5 percent. The Organization of American States stated that the poll could not meet the criteria for free and fair elections.

In November 2024, the National Assembly approved a constitutional reform that, if enacted, would expand executive powers, increase presidential terms to six years, and install Ortega’s wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, as “copresident.” International rights organizations and Nicaraguan opposition groups condemned the proposed reforms as an undemocratic and illegitimate attempt to establish Murillo as Ortega’s political successor. The reforms must be confirmed in a second vote, set for January 2025, before they can be enacted.

The constitution provides a 92-seat unicameral National Assembly, with members chosen through proportional representation. Two seats are reserved for the previous president and the runner-up in the most recent election. Legislative elections are held every five years.

Ahead of the 2021 legislative elections, the government arrested opposition candidates and party members, including those running for seats in the National Assembly. The Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) annulled the legal status of several rival parties. Political parties that remained presented no meaningful challenge to the FSLN. The government announced that the FSLN had won 74 percent of the vote and was assigned 75 legislative seats. Election monitoring missions were not allowed to observe the vote.

The CSE and judiciary generally serve the interests of the FSLN and have played a crucial role in strengthening Ortega and the FSLN’s power. In 2021, the National Assembly appointed individuals who maintained ties to Ortega to the CSE’s governing committee. The CSE also employed the Sovereignty Law to ban opposition candidates from running in legislative elections and from ever holding public office.

Political parties face legal and practical obstacles to formation and operations. Party leaders are easily co-opted or disqualified by Ortega-aligned institutions. Membership in the FSLN is often required to hold civil service positions. Under 2014 constitutional reforms, legislators must follow the party vote or risk losing seats.

Parties can lose their legal status or be stopped from participating in elections. The government has used the Foreign Agents Law and the Sovereignty Law, both passed in 2020, to end the legal status of opposition parties and prevent candidates from participating in elections.

Opposition candidates and activists are subject to surveillance and harassment at the hands of security forces, police, and paramilitary groups. Some 50 critics, including 7 people who ran for president in 2021, received prison sentences and were disqualified from public office in 2022. Two imprisoned presidential candidates were among the 222 prisoners exiled by the regime in February 2023.

Nicaragua’s opposition lacks the opportunity to increase its support or gain power through elections, as the government has employed legislation, repression, and violence to impede opposition activities. Opposition candidates and activists were arrested en masse in the lead-up to the 2021 elections.

President Ortega controls all government branches and public institutions, as well as the country’s media, granting him and the FSLN significant influence over people’s political choices.

Minority groups, especially Indigenous residents in the Caribbean and eastern regions, are politically underrepresented. The government and FSLN largely ignore their grievances. Indigenous groups have experienced increased state-led repression in recent years. In 2023, the regime ended the legal status of Yatama, an Indigenous political party. In November 2024, officials admitted that Brooklyn Rivera and Nancy Henríquez, Yatama legislators who disappeared in late 2023, had been detained by the government; their whereabouts remained unknown as of year-end 2024.

The regime’s continued crackdown on religious organizations, particularly the Roman Catholic Church and those affiliated with it, has sharply curtailed such groups’ ability to exercise their political rights. The closure of thousands of religious organizations and persecution of religious figures critical of the regime in recent years has suppressed their capacity to meaningfully and independently engage in politics, silencing large numbers of previously politically active community leaders and human rights advocates.

In practice, successful political advocacy by women is generally restricted to initiatives that enjoy the support of the FSLN.

Score Change: The score declined from 2 to 1 because crackdowns on dissent in recent years have included the forced disappearance of Indigenous legislators and the closure of religious organizations, severely restricting the ability of key segments of society to advocate independently for their political interests.

Ortega and the FSLN dominate public institutions. The FSLN won an absolute majority of National Assembly seats in the 2021 elections, which were neither free nor fair. Under 2014 constitutional reforms, President Ortega has a wide degree of discretionary powers to set policy. Executive dominance of the legislature results in a consistent lack of oversight.

Corruption in Nicaragua is widespread but rarely investigated or prosecuted. In the past, authorities have launched antigraft probes targeting opposition members, often with the aim of delegitimizing or arresting them. In 2024, Nicaraguan democracy watchdog Urnas Abiertas (Open Polls) published a study aiming to document the scope of corruption in Nicaragua. According to its findings, over 50 percent of transactions carried out by survey respondents with public officials during the first half of 2024 involved an irregular payment in the form of bribery or extortion.

Under Ortega, Nicaragua has become a safe haven for foreign politicians escaping trials, many for their alleged involvement in corruption schemes, including Mauricio Funes and Salvador Sánchez Cerén, former presidents of El Salvador.

Score Change: The score declined from 1 to 0 due to the endemic nature of state corruption and the absence of any legitimate government effort to combat it.

Government operations and policymaking are generally opaque. The 2007 Law on Access to Public Information requires public entities and private companies doing business with the state to disclose certain information. Government agencies at all levels generally ignore this law. Ortega rarely holds press conferences. The Communications and Citizenry Council oversees the government’s press relations and is directed by Vice President Rosario Murillo—Ortega’s wife—and has been accused of limiting access to information.

The Ortega regime has cracked down on free and independent media and journalists since returning to power in 2007. The government has intimidated and arrested journalists, censored media outlets, and worked to deprive print media of essential supplies, including ink and paper. The regime has also targeted foreign outlets.

In May 2024, President Daniel Ortega’s brother, Humberto Ortega, a former high-ranking Sandinista official, was arrested by security forces and placed under house arrest after criticizing the regime in an interview with a foreign press outlet. Humberto Ortega died while under house arrest in September.

In 2020, the National Assembly passed the Special Cybercrimes Law (LEC), which made criminalizing dissent in traditional news outlets and social media easier. In September 2024, the regime amended the LEC to increase penalties for violating the law and to allow for the prosecution of alleged crimes committed on social media outside of Nicaragua.

In November, the National Assembly approved a constitutional reform that, if enacted, would increase presidential control over the media. The reform must be confirmed in a second vote in January 2025 before it can be enacted.

Catholic Church officials have been denounced and smeared by authorities for accompanying or defending antigovernment protesters since 2018. Progovernment mobs attacked churches where protesters were sheltering, while clergy members received threats and experienced surveillance.

The regime has since continued to target Catholic clergy and restrict religious expression. Bishop Rolando José Álvarez Lagos, an outspoken critic who was arrested in 2022, was sentenced to 26 years’ imprisonment in February 2023 for charges including treason after he refused to be exiled to the United States. The court also ordered that Álvarez’s citizenship be revoked. That June, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights called for his release. The regime briefly did so, but Álvarez was sent back to prison that July because he reportedly refused banishment. In January 2024, the regime expelled Álvarez, another bishop, 15 clergy members, and two seminarians from the country; seven more clergy members were expelled in August. According to human rights NGO Nicaragua Nunca Más (Never Again Nicaragua), the regime has expelled over 150 priests, or roughly 25 percent of the country’s Catholic clergy, since 2018.

In 2023, the regime dissolved the Society of Jesus, better known as the Jesuits, in Nicaragua and confiscated its assets. Numerous churches and religious organizations have been shuttered by the government in recent years, including several in August 2024.

Since the 2018 crisis, teachers have experienced harassment from authorities and progovernment groups and must follow the Education Ministry’s strict guidelines. Students at the primary and secondary levels are reportedly required to attend progovernment rallies. Pro–FSLN materials are often displayed in school buildings. Under a 2022 law, the government-controlled National Council of Universities functions as the main academic governing body, limiting academic autonomy.

Authorities have closed institutions of higher education in recent years, with the legal status of at least 37 revoked between 2021 and 2024. The regime has labeled at least one of these institutions as a “center of terrorism,” and has often seized their assets.

An ongoing campaign of repression and intimidation by state and progovernment forces inspires a general climate of fear and terror that restricts free expression. State and progovernment forces routinely monitor the activities of individuals who oppose the regime. The families of victims of regime violence and people who return from abroad are also monitored and surveilled. Authorities are known to use international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) catchers, which allow operators to intercept the mobile communications of users who unwittingly connect to them.

The regime criminalized the spread of “false news” and targeted whistleblowing by government employees. The LEC also gives the government broad access to user data. In 2021, the National Assembly amended the constitution to allow for life sentences for hate crimes; Ortega has referred to opposition activities as such. The government also relies on the Sovereignty Law to crack down on opposition activities. September 2024 amendments to the LEC extend surveillance and censorship to social media platforms.

Freedom of assembly has severely deteriorated since 2018, when at least 328 people were killed in a brutal crackdown on antigovernment protests. Most abuses were attributed to the National Police and armed allied groups.

Assembly rights have been restricted since, with authorities stopping Catholic worshippers from holding public processions and surveilling churchgoers attending mass. In 2024, the regime once more banned public assemblies celebrating Lent, Good Friday, and Easter.

Groups critical of the government or focusing on issues like corruption have operated within an increasingly restrictive environment under the Ortega regime. Authorities have targeted nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), accusing them of undermining the regime or acting as foreign agents. Human rights groups have reported continued monitoring and surveillance and have denounced activist repression, including sexual assaults on women activists.

Under an NGO law passed in 2022, the government can rescind the legal status of organizations that “promote campaigns to destabilize” Nicaragua and can seize NGOs’ assets in certain circumstances. On a single day in August 2024, the regime canceled the legal status of 1,500 nonprofit organizations, including several NGOs. As of that month, the legal status of over 5,200 organizations had been canceled since the regime’s 2018 crackdown on civil society.

The FSLN controls Nicaragua’s most influential labor unions, and the legal rights of non–FSLN unions are not fully guaranteed in practice. FSLN–controlled unions endorsed Ortega’s 2021 reelection bid.

Nicaragua lacks an independent judiciary. The executive branch strongly influences the nomination of judges, and loyalty to the ruling party determines their appointments. In the run-up to the 2021 election, the judiciary played a critical role in ordering the arrest of opposition members and ending the legal status of opposition parties. The judiciary has also overseen sham trials of the government’s opponents, with defendants being convicted of “undermining judicial integrity” in closed proceedings.

Vice President Murillo continued to preside over a purge of the judicial branch into 2024. At least 900 judges and officials were dismissed in 2023. In July 2024, Nicaraguan authorities appointed more than 50 new judges; the new appointees reportedly have no formal judicial training and were selected by the regime on partisan grounds. In January and May, the National Assembly approved reforms of the Judicial Career Law and Organic Law of the Judiciary that weaken judicial independence by slashing the judiciary’s autonomous budget, among other things.

Since the 2018 protests, the United Nations and human rights organizations have documented rampant due process violations. Police and progovernment forces have engaged in arbitrary and politically motivated arrests and detentions, while authorities have acted without warrants. Detainees’ locations are sometimes not publicized, and individuals have been held incommunicado.

Political prisoners and opposition activists have been denied due process. The 2022 trials against high-profile political prisoners unfolded behind closed doors and under accelerated timelines. Opposition members, human rights defenders, and journalists who were arrested in May 2023 were tried en masse and were not allowed to retain legal counsel of their choosing.

A constitutional amendment and related law passed in 2023 allow the regime to strip citizenship from “traitors to the homeland.” The regime used this power to strip the citizenship of the 222 prisoners it had unilaterally exiled that same day, while another 94 people had their citizenship stripped later that month. In September 2024, the regime ordered a new wave of forced removals, stripping 135 political prisoners of their citizenship and releasing them to Guatemala. The Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners reported that 45 people were still being held as political prisoners as of late 2024.

The 2018 protest movement and subsequent rallies have been met with violent repression by police and informally allied armed forces. Reports from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the relatives of political prisoners have documented severe abuses; detainees face psychological and physical torture, sexual violence, forced confessions, disappearances, significant deterioration of prison conditions, and extrajudicial killings. In September 2024, the OHCHR published a report stating that “the human rights situation in Nicaragua has continued to seriously deteriorate.”

International human rights organizations estimate that more than 200,000 Nicaraguans have fled to Costa Rica since 2018.

The constitution and laws nominally recognize the rights of Indigenous communities, but those rights have not been respected in practice. Approximately 5 percent of the population is Indigenous and lives mostly in the North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region (RACCN) and the South Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region (RACCS). While Indigenous populations have been granted legal rights and protections to land, the government does not enforce these laws.

Attacks against Indigenous populations and land incursions have been perpetrated with impunity in recent years. In 2022, Indigenous representatives reported that they lived at “a high risk of ethnocide” due to mistreatment and the loss of land rights. That same year, the OHCHR expressed concern over violence against Indigenous Nicaraguans and residents of African descent.

LGBT+ people are subject to threats and discrimination, and many, particularly transgender Nicaraguans, have been forced into exile.

The 2018 repression against protesters, the 2021 crackdown on political opponents, and continued surveillance and harassment at the hands of police and paramilitary groups have created a climate of fear and mistrust that discourages free movement. Poor infrastructure limits free movement in some majority-Indigenous areas.

In February 2023, the National Assembly amended Article 21 of the constitution and passed a related law allowing the government to strip the citizenship of those deemed “traitors to the homeland.” The 222 prisoners unilaterally released that month lost their citizenship and were rendered stateless. Another 94 people, most of whom were already living in exile abroad, lost their citizenship later that month. In September 2024, the regime exiled another 135 political prisoners, stripping their citizenship and removing them to Guatemala.

Property rights are protected on paper but can be tenuous in practice. Titles are often contested, and individuals with connections to the FSLN enjoy an advantage during property disputes.

In 2023, the Ortega regime deepened its policy of arbitrarily seizing private assets. Individuals who were deemed “traitors to the homeland” had their property seized by the state. The same occurred to business leaders, the Jesuits, and institutions of higher education, including the Central American University (UCA) and the Central American Institute of Business Administration (INCAE).

Several laws and legislative amendments passed in 2024 legalized the government’s common practice of seizing the property and assets of individuals and organizations accused of certain crimes. In September, the National Assembly adopted reforms to the penal code, allowing authorities to confiscate property from those convicted of committing crimes against the state, even if they reside outside of Nicaragua.

Also in September, the National Assembly amended the Financial Analysis Unit Law (UAF), granting the regime access to remittances and the prerogative to freeze and seize electronic transfers it considers suspicious. According to the World Bank, remittances accounted for 26.1 percent of Nicaragua’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023.

Gender-based violence has increased in recent years, and the Network of Women against Violence has claimed that the rising rates of femicides have reached near-epidemic levels. According to NGO Never Again Nicaragua, 716 femicides occurred between 2010 and 2020. Catholics for the Right to Decide reported 76 femicides in the first 11 months of 2024, more than were recorded during all of 2023.

Abortion is illegal and punishable by imprisonment, even when performed as a life-saving measure or in cases of rape or incest. Medical practitioners and those who get abortions can be punished with eight-year prison sentences.

In the 2024 edition of its Trafficking in Persons Report, the US State Department reported that the government did little to eliminate human trafficking, did not reliably report on trafficking, and offered no shelters for survivors. The report also stated that Nicaraguan women and children in the country’s two Caribbean autonomous regions are at higher risk of experiencing sex and labor trafficking.