Félix Maradiaga

A leader of the opposition group Blue and White National Unity, Maradiaga is a pre-candidate for president in the 2021 Nicaraguan general election. On June 8, 2021, he was arrested by the Ortega government.

He ran for president during 2021 Nicaragua national elections. On June 8, 2021 he was arrested by the Ortega government, the third opposition candidate detained.

Maradiaga is a leader of the Blue and White National Unity (UNAB) movement, one of the major opposition groups formed in the wake of protest and ensuing bloody repression by the Daniel Ortega government that broke out in April 2018. In September 2018, he testified before the UN Security Council about the government repression. A warrant was subsequently issued for his arrest, accusing him of "organized crime and financing of terrorism". That same year, Maradiaga was hospitalized by a group of government supporters in León. Maradiaga later fled the country. He returned to Nicaragua in September 2019 and though police awaited his arrival at the airport, he was not arrested.

In 2017, he was appointed Executive Director of the Institute of Strategic Studies and Public Policy (IEEPP), where he focused his work on investigating the impact of corruption on public administration and the importance of public investment in education, health and development in early childhood to reduce poverty.

In 2011, he served as academic coordinator of the Civil Society Leadership Institute. Between 2012 and 2016, he co-founded and directed Pioneer Capital Partners, a company focused on promoting investments for Central America and the Caribbean.

He later studied for a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University, where he graduated with honors. In 2009, he studied law and political science at Yale as a member of the Yale World Fellows.

Maradiaga married Berta Valle in 2006. Since 2018, Valle has been living in exile in the United States with the couple’s daughter, born c. 2014, and her mother-in-law.

In 2004, he became the youngest Secretary General of the Ministry of Defense of Nicaragua, where he promoted the social and economic well-being of ex-combatants, helping hundreds of people to become local entrepreneurs through various initiatives of the agroindustry.

Between 1997 and 2001 he was the director of the Office for the Reintegration of Ex-combatants, thus contributing to the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration efforts of 2,300 members of the Nicaraguan guerrilla.

Upon returning to Nicaragua in 1990, he resumed his studies in Matagalpa, where he had Archbishop of Managua, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, as a mentor who asked him to form the youth ministry of Matagalpa. In this period he learned about non-violence, citizen participation and the strengthening of democracy. After high school he was given a scholarship from a Keiser University division based in San Marcos, Carazo, where he studied political science and international relations.

Félix Alejandro Maradiaga Blandón (born 23 September 1976) is a Nicaraguan academic and political activist. From 2002 to 2006, he was Secretary General of the Ministry of Defense under President Enrique Bolaños. Maradiaga is the founding co-director of the Civil Society Leadership Institute.