Security & Strategic Review - May 2025

In late March Nicaragua’s 92-member unicameral legislature, which like all institutions is controlled by President Daniel Ortega’s Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), approved changes to the country’s military code. Among other things the changes introduce a military reserve. They also effectively consolidate the stranglehold on power of Ortega and First Lady Rosario Murillo, now a co-president following the recently implemented sweeping constitutional reform package [SSR-25-01]: both co-presidents are named as heads of the armed forces.