OAS votes to hold urgent meeting on Nicaragua
The Organization of American States (OAS) has voted to convene an urgent meeting of foreign ministers over Nicaragua, declaring that representative democracy "no longer exists" in the country. The Permanent Council approved a resolution calling for the meeting by a vote of 29 to 1, with one abstention and two countries absent, according to a post on the social media platform X.
The resolution, which invokes the OAS Charter's Articles 61, 62 and 63 — provisions often reserved for emergencies that demand a collective response — describes developments in Nicaragua as "a problem of an urgent nature and of common interest to the American States." The council's president has been instructed to draft a meeting agenda "as soon as possible," though a date for the extraordinary meeting has not been set.
The vote came in response to a planned constitutional reform that would bar the opposition from running in elections, with Nicaragua's loyalist legislature due to vote on the changes in September. The reforms, unveiled in July, would extend President Daniel Ortega's term from six to seven years and would ban opposition figures from public elections if they are considered "traitors to the homeland." They would also allow the country's electoral council to dissolve any political party receiving funding from abroad.
Context: Ortega's consolidation of power
Nicaragua is ruled by President Daniel Ortega, who led the toppling of a US-backed dictator in 1979 and has been in power since 2006, governing alongside his wife, Rosario Murillo. Murillo was elevated from vice president to co-president in 2025. Ortega, 80, has been accused of consolidating power at the expense of human rights, with critics describing him as a harsh autocrat who tolerates zero dissent.
Crackdowns on dissent intensified after the outbreak of student-led protests in 2018, to which the government responded with deadly force; hundreds of people died in the subsequent clashes. Ortega has jailed critics, shut down independent media outlets, shuttered nonprofits and dissolved opposition parties. In 2023, the government loaded more than 200 political prisoners onto a plane and flew them out of the country, stripping them of their Nicaraguan citizenship.
Ortega has defended his actions as necessary to combat outside influences, including the United States. In a July speech, he suggested that no more elections would be held for opposition members "to try to seize the government."
International reaction and limits of OAS power
The OAS decision was welcomed by the opposition in exile. Former presidential candidate and political prisoner Juan Sebastián Chamorro described it as an "overwhelming victory for democracy in Nicaragua."
Argentina's Ambassador to the OAS, Carlos Cherniak, said the need for debate on Nicaragua was urgent. "All of our countries are worried about criminal organisations. Isn't a regime that cancels democracy perhaps a platform for criminal organisations?" he asked.
His comments followed a call by the United States government for OAS members to "take real action" against the Ortega regime. "The repetition of condemnations without meaningful institutional action teaches Murillo and Ortega that they can simply wait for us to grow tired," said Michael Kozak, head of the Latin America bureau at the US State Department.
The OAS, a Washington-based body that works to promote development and cooperation in the Americas, cannot impose economic or trade sanctions on a country. Its options are limited to diplomatic condemnation, suspension of a member state, or recommending that members punish a nation that violates democratic norms.
Nicaragua's relationship with the OAS has been fraying for years. The country announced plans to break from the body in 2021 and completed the process in 2023, meaning it is no longer a member state. The move to hold an urgent meeting comes despite Nicaragua's withdrawal.
In July, UN human rights chief Volker Turk warned that blocking elections would further erode Nicaragua's rule of law, noting "severe restrictions on fundamental freedoms" under Ortega and Murillo.