The elimination of elections is a rare and extreme case, even in today’s landscape of authoritarian regimes. 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. Although it is not unheard of that authoritarian incumbents also lose elections, these tools are designed to keep them in power. In such cases, elections allow authoritarian regimes to project legitimacy both domestically and internationally. What the case reveals beyond Ortega is a growing brazenness among authoritarian regimes and a declining concern for international legitimacy.