Can Venezuelan dissident Leopoldo López shift from inspirational force to effective political leader?

▶ Leopoldo López pressured the government into calling elections ▶ “He has no concept of collective decision-making”

When the Venezuelan government threw Leopoldo López into prison two years ago, it sought to silence a charismatic opponent in an increasingly angry country. It didn’t work. A 30-day hunger strike by López last year helped force the ruling socialists to hold legislative elections that have created a huge antigovernment majority. One Wednesday in January at Mass, guards told López to stop talking politics. He’d just given an emotional reading of the psalm for the day, which referred to preaching “righteousness in the great congregation.” “When he wants to send a message, he’s full of energy and force,” says his lawyer and political adviser, Gustavo Velázquez.

What Venezuelans fear is that López is better at creating politicial drama than building consensus. The 44-yearold scion of a family that goes back to the country’s 1811 founding has an elite U.S. education, movie-star looks, and untethered ambition. He’s sometimes described as a cross between John F. Kennedy and Nelson Mandela. With the new congress hoping to free him soon, the question on many minds is: Can López, who leans slightly left of center, lead a long-fractured opposition?

Some are skeptical, saying that the dozen or so parties that make up the opposition, from Marxist to the center right, require something López is not: a unifier. “He’s a warrior and, God willing, he will be freed,” says Liliana Hernández, a former opposition congresswoman who worked closely with López in several different parties. “But he is his own hierarchy. He has no concept of collective decision-making.”

Those closest to López say he has undergone a profound change in prison. One of his lawyers, Juan Carlos Gutiérrez, says that rubbing elbows with criminals and underpaid soldiers in the military facility has made López calmer, more philosophical, and more focused. He says López has told him more than once that if it weren’t for the suffering of his wife and children, he would be thankful for this experience.

Gutiérrez and others who have visited him say López has grown more policyoriented, expressing the desire to build a political coalition rather than to lead a popular movement. His lawyers have seen him poring over reports on agriculture and oil production as well as books on Venezuela’s political history. They say he’s written policy papers that haven’t been published.

A widely circulated letter López wrote in November urged Venezuelans to seek regime change, even though President Nicolás Maduro isn’t up for reelection for three more years. “We can’t wait years, we can’t wait until presidential elections,” said the letter that spread through social media before the stunning December defeat of Maduro’s party in congress. “The political change in Venezuela has a date, and it’s the first part of 2016.” One legal way to unseat Maduro would be to organize a recall referendum.

Thanks to its victory, the opposition in congress has wide-reaching power to challenge Maduro, who took over in 2013 after the death of Hugo Chávez, the charismatic leader of Venezuela’s leftist revolution. But the government has questioned the legitimacy of three winners of opposition seats, leaving Maduro’s rivals short of the supermajority they could use to upend the country’s balance of power. A supermajority, at least two-thirds of congressional seats, empowers the opposition to create a new constitution, a process that automatically removes the sitting president.

Like other countries that rely on oil, Venezuela has had a disastrous year with its state budget, and its subsidies for everything from gasoline to flour are under severe strain. Violent crime, endless lines for basic goods, and corruption have drained Venezuelans’ of faith in their leaders. If López is released, he may be able to turn this moment into his own.

In 2002, as a coup attempt against Chávez was taking place, López, then mayor of Chacao, an upscale section of Caracas, seemed to take sides by assisting in the televised arrest of a Chávez cabinet member, an event López’s critics still cite. “He never won over the people,” says Roque Valera, a

“When he wants to send a message, he’s full of energy and force.” ——Gustavo Velázquez, political adviser to López

community organizer. “He’s only been interested in power.”

Then, in 2006, López’s disagreements over the direction of Justice First, the political party he helped found, led him to leave. Following a brief stint at another opposition party, he created Popular Will, a center-left movement. But after failing to unseat both Chávez and then Maduro, and losing municipal elections, López broke away again. In early 2014 he incited countrywide protests, known as “the exit,” aimed at pressuring Maduro to resign. The protests turned violent, and soldiers fired at demonstrators. Three people died, and the government charged López with inciting violence; he said he was innocent. Political moderates called the protests reckless and blamed López. He and his supporters countered that protests were needed to draw foreign attention to the government’s increasing authoritarianism. Now the opposition and López have their best chance in years of checking Chavismo. But they have to stop a revolution without starting a civil war. �Andrew Rosati

The bottom line Venezuela’s stability may depend on how well López has learned to channel his energies into effective political action.