When Juan Guaidó declared himself Venezuela’s interim president last month, he appeared to leapfrog a generation of rival opposition leaders and offer a dramatic way past the infighting and tactical differences that had hobbled previous efforts to unseat Nicolás Maduro.
But the rise of the fresh-faced opposition leader was orchestrated by a Harvard-educated economist with a checkered history in Venezuelan politics, who continues to direct opposition strategy and coordinate with US and regional officials from under house arrest in Venezuela.
Interviews with Venezuelan opposition figures and officials in Washington have confirmed that Leopoldo López, a divisive former mayor of a Caracas borough, helped engineer Guaidó’s meteoric rise – and still harbours ambitions to become Venezuela’s next president.
Since 2017, López – a distant relative of the South American revolutionary hero Simón Bolívar – has been confined to his home in the moneyed Chacao district of Caracas where he once served as mayor.
But he handpicked Guiadó to lead his People’s Will party in congress and continues to play a central role in the campaign to force Maduro from office.
“Leopoldo’s in contact with everyone, every day, constantly,” López’s wife, Lilian Tintori, told the Guardian. “He’s been sewing together an opposition that’s totally united and strong and pushing in the same direction, which is what we are seeing now.”
López has long been a polarising figure, advocating a more confrontational approach than some other opposition leaders. “He is often described as arrogant, vindictive, and power-hungry – but party officials also concede his enduring popularity, charisma, and talent as an organiser,” a Caracas-based US diplomat wrote in a 2009 cable published by WikiLeaks.
After anti-government protests in 2014, López was given a 14-year prison sentence for inciting violence, following a trial activists denounced as politically motivated and flawed.
Moved to house arrest in 2017, López is barred from speaking to the press and remains under close guard by police who take his photo with a copy of the day’s newspaper every four hours – “like a hostage”, Tintori said. But using encrypted messaging apps, he remains in contact with other opposition activists in Venezuela, Colombia and the US.
