Cardenal left the FSLN in 1994, protesting the authoritarian direction of the party under Daniel Ortega, calling it a "robbery of the people and dictatorship not a revolutionary movement" when he left the government. He was a member of the Movimiento de Renovación Sandinista (Sandinista Renovation Movement, or MRS) that participated in the 2006 Nicaraguan general election. Days before the election, Cardenal explained his decision: "I think more desirable an authentic capitalism, as Montealegre's [Eduardo Montealegre, the presidential candidate for Nicaraguan Liberal Alliance] would be, than a false Revolution."