The aim of the article is to examine the relationship between religion and politics in Nicaragua with a special emphasis on the power relations between the Catholic Church and the State. In spite of the fact that the Republic of Nicaragua constitutionally has been and still is a secular state, both the Church and the State have used each other in their respective struggles for power, The Church-State relationship has broken down twice in the 1970s under Somoza and in the 1980s under Sandinistas. The Sandinista electoral defeat in 1990 signalled the restoration of the old tradicionally close/tight relationship between Church and State. Ever since his electoral defeat in 1990, Daniel Ortega was adamant in his efforts to recover power, but the legacy of animosity between the Sadinistas and the Church represented a formidable obstacle to Ortega's ambition. The article is an interpretative case study which aims to provide a historically and comparatively grounded synthesis of the democracy-constraining character of Ortega's two step collusive pact-making strategy of regaining the presidency. The successful culmination of the strategy was achieved through an unholy alliance between Ortega and Archbishop Miguel Obando y Bravo by wich Ortega embraced the institucional interests as well as the moral policy preferences of the Catholic Church. The latter was sealed by the FSLN voting for the abolition of therapeutic abortion two weeks before the November 2006 elections. The article argues that the abolition of therapeutic abortion is a product of the collusive character of Ortega's political strategy of regaining the presidency.