Medardo Mairena

Medardo Mairena Sequeira (born c. 1977) is a Nicaraguan farmer and coordinator of the peasant (campesino) movement. Mairena has worked in the peasant anti-canal movement since 2013 and has been an active opposition leader since the national protests broke out in late April 2018, participating in the National Dialogue between protestors and the government of Daniel Ortega, mediated by the Catholic Church. Two months later he became one of a large number of dissidents arrested and prosecuted for terrorism; Mairena was sentenced to 261 years in prison, serving one year before he was released under a negotiated Amnesty Law.

In 2021 Mairena was one of the opposition pre-candidates seeking to challenge Ortega who is running for a fifth term in the November general election. On 5 July 2021, Mairena was arrested again, the sixth opposition pre-candidate and one of two dozen opposition figures jailed since the beginning of June 2021.