Felix Maradiaga

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. He was taken in by a Nicaraguan family and lived in his foster parents' care in south Florida for two years.

Career 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.

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.

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.

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.

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. A warrant was subsequently issued for his arrest, accusing him of "organized crime and financing of terrorism". 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.

Personal life 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.

On 10 February 2023, along with 221 other political prisoners, Maradiaga was released from prison and expelled to the United States after having his nationality revoked by the Nicaraguan government.