Berta Valle

Valle, born circa 1984,^[1] grew up with two brothers.^[2] She holds a BS in Business Economics from the Catholic University of Nicaragua and an MBA from INCAE Business School in Managua.^[2]

In 2003, she was crowned queen of the Carnaval Alegría por la Vida.^[2]

Valle spent eight years working as a television presenter on the morning show Primera Hora.^[2] She also worked as a station manager at Vos TV, and on a show she created in 2015 with Xiomara Blandino called Berta y Xiomara: Todo en Positivo.^[2]

In 2016, Valle was nominated as an independent to represent Managua in the National Assembly by the Independent Liberal Party (PLI) as part of its National Coalition for Democracy.^[3] She was the first candidate listed on the party’s electoral slate,^[3] but Nicaragua’s Supreme Court, controlled by Ortega loyalists, disqualified the party’s electoral coalition and Valle was blocked from running.^{[citation needed]}

Since 2019, she has led Voces en Libertad, a nonprofit promoting cooperation among members of Nicaragua’s independent media who fled the country following the 2018 sociopolitical crisis.^[4]

On June 8, 2021, her husband Félix Maradiaga became part of a wave of arrests of opposition pre-candidates for president in the 2021 Nicaraguan general election.^[5] Valle has coordinated defense teams supporting him in and outside of Nicaragua.^[6] On July 27, 2021, the Nicaraguan Public Ministry and Nicaraguan National Police announced an investigation of Valle under controversial Law 1055, accusing her of being a “traitor to the homeland,” based on her international advocacy for pressure to release her detained husband.^[7] Victoria Cárdenas, wife of Juan Sebastián Chamorro, another detained candidate, was similarly accused.^[7]

She married Maradiaga circa 2006.^[2] Since 2018, Valle has been living in exile in the United States with the couple’s daughter (born circa 2014).^[8]