Nicaragua’s Police Force Quintupled in 2025
Rosario Murillo has sworn in 30,000 hooded “volunteers” in Managua, which experts affirm will comprise her own repressive army.
HAVANA TIMES – In just 6 weeks, the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo has quintupled the size of their primary repressive force in Nicaragua by adding 84,811 members to the Police, including both paid officers and so-called “volunteer police.” “Volunteer police” was the label the dictatorship used to justify the assaults of paramilitary groups against the 2018 citizen protests. With the newly sworn-in recruits, the number of police went from 20,474 officers in 2024 to 105,285 individuals in February 2025, according to a Confidencial tabulation of the official data. This increase has been termed Rosario Murillo’s “Army”, and represents the greatest number of police in the country’s history, even though the dictatorship insists that Nicaragua is experiencing times of peace.
The total number of new recruits included 76,887 volunteers and 7,924 regular police, all hastily sworn in between January 15 and February 26, via ceremonies held in 20 of the country’s municipalities. On the latter date, the Head Police Chief – a relative by marriage of Ortega and Murillo – was also sworn in for a new term. The largest number of “voluntary police” was in Managua, where some 30,000 people took the oath of loyalty.
Intimidation the chief objective of “Rosario Murillo’s army”
The mass swearing-in of these supposedly voluntary police is an exercise in intimidation, experts in national security believe. These specialists spoke under condition of anonymity, to avoid reprisals from the Nicaraguan regime.
They affirm that behind this enormous increase in the police force lie the desires of the country’s first lady, “co-president” and chief spokesperson Rosario Murillo, bent on establishing her own armed forces after failing to dominate the Nicaraguan Army, which remains loyal to her husband Daniel Ortega.
“Rosario has wanted to get her hands on the Army, through the demotion and retirement of several veteran officials. One of those who she recently tried to remove because he’s not of her liking is top General Julio Cesar Aviles himself. However, by ratifying the General for a new period, Daniel frustrated her intentions of creating her own circle of influence within the Nicaraguan army,” asserted one of the analysts consulted.
He added: “In the police, Murillo has been the one most influential, since before the appointment of Horacio Rocha who served as super-Minister before being separated from his duties in February. Given this, she’s now “creating her own army, in a two-headed power dynamic.”
“Two-headed power by nature is polarizing. Rosario has her own interests and knows that Daniel is on the way out. So, what she’s doing is assembling a force that will allow her to hold power. She’s anticipating future scenarios, by creating her own muscle and her own force,” another analyst stated.
Double the number of officers
The National Police has been increasing in size for years. However, the increases intensified in 2018, following the installation of a de facto police state in Nicaragua.
“It is an increase for purposes of intimidation,” stated another analyst consulted, adding that the intention is to “create an image of Police strength at a critical moment, because they know that with the newly revised Constitution and the imposition of a legal framework for dynastic succession, people’s discontent continues to grow.”
Departments and regions with the greatest police presence
Managua is the department with the greatest increase in police forces, after the recent incorporation of 30,000 volunteers into a force of 2,740 officers, This means there are 11 “volunteer” police for each trained police officer in the institution.
After Managua, the northern city of Matagalpa has multiplied its “police force” most, going from 498 police officials to 8,148, of who 1,148 are salaried police and 7,000 are volunteers. Women account for 35.4% of these, or 2,484.
Other areas that saw large increases in police and volunteers were the Autonomous Caribbean Coast Regions, both North and South. Two swearing-in ceremonies were held in the North Caribbean region – one in Bilwi and the other in Siuna. In this way, the police forces went from 675 across the entire Caribbean region to over 7,375, including 1,375 officers and 6,000 volunteers.
Before the recent incorporations, the South Caribbean had 532 police, but the addition of 4,989 volunteers and 1,088 new officials brought it to 6,609. The intake ceremonies were held in the municipalities of Bluefields, Nueva Guinea and El Rama.
Jinotega is another of the departments that saw sizable increases in its police force. Until 2021, there were about 368 active police officers, but now the number of officers exceeds 4968, of which 82%, equivalent to 4100, are volunteer police.
Leon and Chinandega, in the western part of the country, went from less than 430 police officers each, to over 4,500, respectively. The former had some 420 policemen until 2021, but now has a police force of 4626, counting 3636 volunteers. Meanwhile, Chinandega police increased from 385 to 4,271, of which 735 are trained officers and 3,536 are volunteers.
In the rest of the country, the formal police force is less than 2,300. However, the departments of Masaya, Granada and Carazo, the smallest in extension, were the sites of violent police “Clean-up” operations” in 2018, and since then have seen an 800% increase in police:
- Masaya went from 342 officers to a total police force of 3273.
- Granada went from 297 officers to a police force of 2737.
- Carazo from 325 officers to a police force of 2225.
Not the “volunteer police” of the eighties
The volunteer police has existed in Nicaragua since the eighties, but the new recruits are completely different notes an analyst in topics of citizen security. Before, “the voluntary police were simply low-ranking soldiers, to express it this way, who aided citizen security with very specific activities. But today, they’re of a different nature,” he explained.
“This voluntary police is an actively integrated part of the National Police. As such, it forms one more arm and one more command structure, even though they can’t hold a leadership rank in the National Police. That activity is now official and institutional. We can’t look at the voluntary police like the police from the eighties, or even those of the nineties.”
“Although they call them voluntary police, in reality it’s one sole body, in terms of the agency. All the actions performed by the voluntary police are legally and administratively bound to the police command, both the general director and the Co-president,” he added.
In the swearing-in ceremonies, Francisco Diaz, head of the National Police, reiterated that the commitment to “loyalty and obedience” refers to the “supreme leadership of Comandante Daniel Ortega Saavedra, co-president, and Rosario Murillo, co-president.”
Who are the volunteer police?
The voluntary police were established as an auxiliary and support body of the National Police in Law #872, the “Law of Organization, Functioning, Career and Special Social Security Status of the National Police.” However, it was not until the Ortega regime elevated it to constitutional rank, with its’ recently revised Constitution, that the massive swearing-in of these citizens began.
The volunteer police officers were first seen on January 15, 2025, wearing white shirts, dark jeans and with their faces hidden under black hoods. At the swearing-in ceremonies, the Police did not inform who is part of this group, when they enlisted, or what training or preparation they received.
The director of the National Police limited himself to saying that the volunteer police force is “made up of Nicaraguan men and women who voluntarily lend their service to defend peace and security.”
In an interview with the pro-government Channel 13, Jaime Vanegas, Chief Police Inspector, stated that it’s made up of “workers, health and education workers, builders, bricklayers, merchants, self-employed entrepreneurs and all the population that in some way has identified itself over the years with this revolutionary project.”
In Matagalpa, one member of the group was identified as Meybol Damaris Quintana, who serves as Second Judge of the local Civil Court. Another recognized figure was Marcela Urbina Gonzalez, an employee of the government-run Prosecutor’s Office for Human Rights Defense in that same department.
In Bluefields, personnel from the [government controlled] University of the Nicaraguan Autonomous Caribbean Coast Regions posed with faces uncovered during their swearing-in ceremony as volunteer police.
Police officials openly admit that these “voluntary police” participated in the 2018 police actions to detain the supposed “Coup d’etat” – the regime’s term for quashing the massive citizen protests of that year.
“For several years they’ve been training to learn actions for intervention, management, and the reduction and reestablishment of public order,” added Police Commissioner Vanegas.
“We joined the fight in 2018 to maintain and defend the Revolution, and we’ve continued fighting for our sovereignty and for peace in our Nicaragua,” Lesly Toledo, a volunteer policeman from Chinandega, told government reporters.
In Rama, another volunteer policeman stated: “with this bloc, we’re ready to maintain order, so that what happened in 2018 doesn’t happen to us again. Now we’re more prepared for any activity that occurs, and to defend Nicaragua, our Commander, and our party.”
The National Police has not explained what are the requirements are for volunteers, or the ways those interested can join. At the swearing-in ceremonies, people in wheelchairs and senior citizens have been observed. Commissioner Vanegas affirmed that “any patriotic Nicaraguan citizen who has the will and disposition” can join.
In 2018, Ortega used the term “volunteer police” to refer to the armed paramilitaries who violently repressed, and in some cases murdered, the citizen protesters. He has since repeated this designation on several occasions, including in September 2022, when he stated that the Army, the Police and the “volunteer police” all helped restore “peace” in Nicaragua.
“It was there when we said, ‘Now’s the time’ and we went with it, we didn’t have to fight huge battles, simply the Police, accompanied by the volunteer Police, quickly dismantled the famous roadblocks,” Ortega repeated in May of 2023 in an activity commemorating the birth of Augusto C. Sandino.
Open admission that the volunteers will be used to repress
Commissioner General Vanegas affirmed that the volunteer police will be charged with prevention work. “They’ll support us in the work of keeping public order. We keep watch and patrol – with the support of the volunteer police.” He added: “The thrust of their labor is in defense of the peace, the protection of peace, this peace we’re enjoying today.
“What is it that our volunteer police do? Follow our indications with loyalty and obedience, as we ourselves do. They carry out all the tasks that we perform and can entrust them with. They’re under the National Police and comprise those who fulfill the tasks we charge them with,” Vanegas stated.
He added that the voluntary police can supposedly not participate in intelligence or investigation activities, nor in raids or follow-up on legal warrants, nor can they make arrests or participate in detentions.
“To be more specific, they can’t act on their own volition, or without the guidance of our National Police,” Vanegas stressed.
Volunteer police officers do not receive a salary, but in the event of “any incident” they will use the resources available to the police. “We have a hospital, we have a number of privileges that are exclusive to professional police officers, but when they are on duty they also have this coverage,” explained Vanegas.
Hugely increased Police presence is expression of the new dual power
Before the current wave of unilateral changes to Nicaragua’s Political Constitution, Article 92 established that the Army could intervene when the stability of the Republic was threatened by great internal disorders, calamities or natural disasters.
“This implied that the police force was a limited force that at a certain moment, according to circumstances, could be supported and assisted by the Army. That specification no longer exists [in the revised Constitution],” noted one of the security analysts.
Hence, he added, “what they’re doing is to reinforce the capacity of the Police, so that it has the strength and capacity to respond to situations of greater magnitude, without the need for the Army”.
In Article 87 of the new Constitution, the Army can only intervene, “when the stability of the Republic requires it” and by order of the Presidency.
“What we have is a process of transition of power,” sustained one of the analysts, “which in the end, if these interests are achieved, may allow them to reach their goals. A scheme where power will be held by Rosario Murillo through a police state, as never before seen in Nicaragua and greater than the Nicaraguan Army.”
First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.