The Nicaraguan autonomous regime has confronted important challenges in the promotion of multi‐ethnic citizenship, as it has been hindered by successive national administrations. This contribution reviews the performance of the autonomous regime by exploring the ongoing contentious reform process of what has become a hybrid model of subnational governance. The argument suggests that the FSLN (Sandinista Front for National Liberation) has continued to press forward its vision of national integration for the Caribbean Coast, and has promoted a political agenda which ultimately aims at subduing autonomy as an avenue for realising the right to self‐determination of Indigenous and Afro‐descendant Peoples.