Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua plans to scrap elections – what that says about today’s autocrats (Felix Wiebrecht, July 27, 2026, The Conversation)
Nicaragua’s elections have long been rigged and repressive. But this marks a new scale of authoritarian rule. The elimination of elections is a rare and extreme case, even in today’s landscape of authoritarian regimes. So this reflects a worrying trend of brazenness on the part of Nicaragua’s president.
Most modern autocrats are what researchers call “spin dictators”. They invest in a democratic disguise and the careful curation of a public image fostered by propaganda and misinformation. Elections play a central role in this playbook.
Hence, most authoritarian regimes nowadays hold somewhat competitive multiparty elections – and only a handful of regimes have resisted the turn towards elections that took off in the 1990s and 2000s. Among those are primarily hereditary monarchies such as Saudi Arabia and Brunei and the one-party state of Eritrea ruled by the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ).
While there are differences in how non-democracies design their elections, they all share a playing field that is inherently tilted towards the incumbents. Widely used methods include restricting ballot access for genuine opposition candidates, manipulating electoral commissions and courts to favour the incumbent and controlling media coverage. Incumbents also have the power to deploy state resources for campaigning while harassing or co-opting opposition figures.