Leopoldo López

Leopoldo López is a freedom activist from Venezuela. He was a political prisoner from 2014 to 2020, after being sentenced to fourteen years in prison for leading non-violent street protests and civil resistance in 2014. After spending seven years in confinement, he managed to escape the autocratic regime of Nicolás Maduro in October 2020, and was able to travel to Spain, where he lives with his family. Leopoldo López is married to Lilian Tintori and has three children. 

From 2000 to 2008, Leopoldo López was the mayor of the Municipality of Chacao in Caracas and was later illegally disqualified from running for office. He won his case at the Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). In 2009, he founded the political party and freedom movement Voluntad Popular (Popular Will) and became its national coordinator. Leopoldo López is the co-founder of the World Liberty Congress, an organization launched in 2022 that seeks to serve as the counterweight against the global autocratic alliance by connecting non-violent, pro-democracy activists and leaders from across the globe. Also, presently Leopoldo López is a visiting fellow at the Wilson Center and The Institute, and has also been a lecturer in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies in Stanford University. 

Studies: Bachelor's degree cum laude from Kenyon College (1993); Master’s degree in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (1996); Lopez was awarded a honoris causa doctorate in Law from Kenyon College in 2007. 

Books: Venezuela Energética. Oil and energy proposal to leverage the well-being and progress of the citizens of Venezuela. (2017); Preso pero Libre (Freedom Confined) Reflections of Lopez experience in prison (2016). 

Published articles: Challenging Autocracy From the Front Lines (2023), Wilson Center; Crypto in Venezuela: Two Sides of a Coin (2024), Wilson Center; co-authored; Opinion pieces in The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Financial Times, among others. https://bridgeurl.com/ll-articles-1 

Awards: NED’s 2013 Democracy Award, Alumni Achievement Award from Harvard University (2014) and Sakharov European Parliament Prize (2017); among others.

Photo: Jesco Denzel