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Security & Strategic Review - March 2025
NICARAGUA: Voluntary police force gains constitutional recognition
“A lawless, repressive army that has been given constitutional status”. This was the response by exiled Nicaraguan opposition writer Gioconda Belli to recently approved changes to the constitution which create a voluntary police force. Approved in late January by the 92-member unicameral legislature, which like all institutions is controlled by President Daniel Ortega’s Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), the changes are in line with the constitutional reform package that he unveiled in November 2024 [SSR-25-01]. Critics consider the new force little more than an institutionalisation of the paramilitary FSLN shock groups which played a key role in helping the police (PNN) suppress dissent as part of the government crackdown which began in 2018 in response to social unrest.
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