{"id":6835,"date":"2019-05-01T10:01:13","date_gmt":"2019-05-01T14:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=6835"},"modified":"2019-05-01T10:01:13","modified_gmt":"2019-05-01T14:01:13","slug":"who-is-leopoldo-lopez-the-newly-freed-opposition-leader-behind-venezuelas-uprising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=6835","title":{"rendered":"Who Is Leopoldo L\u00f3pez, the Newly Freed Opposition Leader Behind Venezuela\u2019s Uprising?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo L\u00f3pez has been freed by his captors from house arrest and is backing a coup attempt against the Maduro government. AFP\/YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Venezuela\u2019s crisis has escalated to new levels.<\/p>\n

In the early morning hours of April 30, Juan Guaid\u00f3 \u2013 the leader of the Venezuelan National Assembly, who swore himself in as interim president in January \u2013 called for an uprising<\/a> against President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s authoritarian government.<\/p>\n

In a video<\/a> posted on social media, Guaid\u00f3, flanked by soldiers, asked Venezuelans to join him in the streets on May 1 for the final stage of \u201cOperation Freedom.\u201d This mass protest and military uprising would be \u201cthe beginning of the end\u201d of a regime Guaid\u00f3 and over 50 countries including the United States consider illegitimate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the background of the video, standing resolutely alongside Guaid\u00f3 and rebel soldiers, was a figure stunning to see: Leopoldo L\u00f3pez<\/a>, Venezuela\u2019s most famous political prisoner.<\/p>\n

Uprising in Caracas<\/strong><\/p>\n

Under President Maduro, who took office in 2013, Venezuela\u2019s economy has faltered<\/a>, then collapsed. Food, medicine and electricity are scarce. Maduro has refused to budge, claiming the country\u2019s economic troubles and popular unrest<\/a> are a U.S. plot against him<\/a>.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez, a former mayor and presidential candidate, was a leading figure in the powerful protest movement against Maduro<\/a> that began in 2014.<\/p>\n

After one major anti-Maduro march in Caracas grew violent, the popular politician was charged with \u201carson and criminal incitement<\/a>.\u201d The moment L\u00f3pez waded through crying supporters to turn himself into police on May 18, 2014, he became the face of Venezuela\u2019s fight for freedom and democracy.<\/p>\n

Supporters saw him as a martyr who confronted the dictatorship rather than going into exile, as so many Venezuelan dissidents have. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison<\/a>.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez\u2019s face was printed on T-shirts, posters and flags that flew across the country. A website, FreeLeopoldo.com<\/a>, called for \u201cthe immediate release of Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo L\u00f3pez, who was illegally imprisoned in an attempt to silence dissent and free speech.\u201d #FreeLeopoldo spread his cause worldwide.<\/p>\n

After three years, the Maduro government in 2017 conceded to intense political pressure and released L\u00f3pez to house arrest<\/a> in the swanky Los Palos Grandes neighborhood. L\u00f3pez, caged, was the embodiment of Venezuela\u2019s vanquished opposition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then, three months ago, Juan Guaid\u00f3 reinvigorated the resistance movement by waging a full frontal assault on Maduro<\/a>. And L\u00f3pez \u2013 apparently freed from house arrest<\/a> by the soldiers guarding his home who were acting on Guaid\u00f3\u2019s orders \u2013 has rejoined the resistance.<\/p>\n

Seeing Leopoldo L\u00f3pez standing with Guaid\u00f3 on that video, as a free man, openly calling for an uprising, was a potent signal for Venezuelans after years of bloody protest<\/a> and multiple thwarted coup attempts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Leopoldo L\u00f3pez\u2019s political pedigree<\/strong><\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez is the great-great-grandson of former Venezuelan president Crist\u00f3bal Mendoza and is said to be related to Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar<\/a>, the Venezuela-born general who liberated five South American countries from Spanish rule in the early 19th century.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez studied economics and sociology at Kenyon College in the United States on a swimming scholarship. In 1996, he got a master\u2019s in public policy at Harvard.<\/p>\n

He began his political career in 2000, with two four-year terms as the handsome, dynamic and popular mayor of Chacao, an upper middle-class municipality of Caracas. By 2008, the end of his second term, he had a 92% approval rating<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when President Hugo Ch\u00e1vez, Venezuela\u2019s late Socialist leader and Maduro\u2019s mentor, accused L\u00f3pez of corruption and banned him from running for office<\/a>. L\u00f3pez was one of many popular Venezuelan politicians to face trumped-up charges that served to stop them from electorally challenging Ch\u00e1vez<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2011 the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled<\/a> that L\u00f3pez must be allowed to run for office \u2013 an order the Venezuelan Supreme Court rejected<\/a>.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez, who planned to run for president against Ch\u00e1vez representing the Voluntad Popular \u2013 a political party that he, Guaid\u00f3 and other opposition figures founded in 2009 \u2013 withdrew his candidacy. Instead, he backed opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski.<\/p>\n

Ch\u00e1vez won the 2012 presidential election, then died a few months into his term. Maduro, his vice president, took office in 2013.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez was sentenced to prison a year later. While he was jailed, L\u00f3pez\u2019s wife, Lilian Tintori, became a thorn in Maduro\u2019s side. She traveled around the world meeting heads of state and denouncing human rights violations in Venezuela. She met with Latin American presidents, Pope Francis, and in February 2015, Joe Biden<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In February 2017 Tintori traveled to Washington to see U.S. President Donald Trump<\/a> and Vice President Mike Pence, who have both condemned Maduro and expressed public support for her husband.<\/p>\n

The Chilean Embassy in Caracas has now announced that Tintori, Leopoldo L\u00f3pez and their children were received as \u201cguests\u201d of the Chilean government<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The outcome of Guaid\u00f3\u2019s effort to oust Maduro is uncertain. But whenever democracy is restored in Venezuela, L\u00f3pez will surely be a presidential candidate to watch.\"The<\/p>\n

Marco Aponte-Moreno<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Global Business and Member of the Institute for Latino and Latin American Studies, St Mary’s College of California <\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Venezuela\u2019s crisis has escalated to new levels. In the early morning hours of April 30, Juan Guaid\u00f3 \u2013 the leader of the Venezuelan National Assembly, who swore himself in as interim president in January \u2013 called for an uprising against President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s authoritarian government. In a video posted on social media, Guaid\u00f3, flanked by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":7302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/271865\/original\/file-20190430-136803-1lvr7w0.png","fifu_image_alt":"Who Is Leopoldo L\u00f3pez, the Newly Freed Opposition Leader Behind Venezuela\u2019s Uprising?","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polity-governance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6837,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6835\/revisions\/6837"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}