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About me

 Alberto Isaac Pérez Levy (born April 25, 1971) is a Venezuelan politician, activist, and social worker. He serves as president of the NGO *Asociación Civil Venezolanos en España* (Venezuelans in Spain Civil Association) and as a board member of the non-profit organization *Venezuela Somos Todos* (Venezuela Is All of Us)—the former based in Spain and the latter with an international scope. He was a member and leader of Primero Justicia, a center-right political party in Venezuela, and also served as a member, leader, and official representative in Madrid (Spain) for Voluntad Popular, a progressive, social-democratic Venezuelan political party founded by former Chacao mayor Leopoldo López.

Venezuelan Minister of Interior, Justice, and Peace Diosdado Cabello Rondón described Pérez Levy as a "fugitive, exile, far-right opposition figure, stateless person, and defender of Venezuela's enemies" due to his efforts to expose corruption and human rights violations committed by the Venezuelan regime before Spanish and European institutions. An outspoken critic of the Chávez and Maduro governments—focusing on corruption and serious crimes against civilians—he has received extensive media coverage for his well-founded and documented accusations, as well as for his public activities and campaigns of protest and denunciation.

Pérez Levy has been pursued in Spain by Lieutenant Colonel José Rafael Vásquez Mora—a military police specialist and deputy defense attaché at the Venezuelan diplomatic mission—who commanded five officers as well as eight civilian agents from the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN). Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo has issued a warning to the Venezuelan Embassy in Madrid to cease the harassment and surveillance of the Venezuelan opposition.


Early Years

Alberto Isaac Pérez Levy was born on April 25, 1971, in the municipality of Baruta, within the Metropolitan District of Caracas, Venezuela. His parents were Alberto Pérez Ramírez and Menna Mercedes Levy Matos; both came from long-standing Jewish lineages. On his father's side, he is a descendant of Brigadier Marcos Francisco de Bethencourt y Castro, who arrived in 1700 and served as Governor and Captain General of Venezuela between 1701 and 1707. Alberto’s father and grandfather were lawyers by profession and played a key role in the development of modern shopping malls and movie theaters in Venezuela. His mother, Menna, is of Jewish descent, with roots in Tangier, Morocco, and Denmark. She was born in La Victoria, a city in the state of Aragua famous for the Battle of Independence on February 12, 1814. There, a family ancestor, José Félix Ribas, led a young, inexperienced army that succeeded in halting the Royalist troops.

Pérez Levy is the great-nephew of Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo, a prominent Venezuelan diplomat, politician, and lawyer who was the driving force behind the creation of OPEC. Persecuted and imprisoned by the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez, he went into exile in Mexico City and Washington, D.C. He is also a relative of his second cousin, Isaac Pérez Recao, a businessman present during the attempted coup d'état that led to Hugo Chávez briefly leaving the presidency in Venezuela on April 12, 2002. Additionally, he is a cousin of Gerardo Alberto Blyde Pérez, a politician and lawyer who served as mayor of the Baruta municipality in Caracas and as head of the Unitary Platform delegation during political negotiations between the platform and the Venezuelan government.

After completing his primary and secondary education at the Colegio Santo Tomás de Aquino—where he played as a goalkeeper on the soccer team—Pérez Levy enrolled at the Universidad de Santa María to study law but did not complete his degree. He devoted himself to his father's law firm, from which he ventured into politics and public service.

He completed a diploma program in Social Organization at the Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas and took courses with the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the National Democratic Institute (NDI), UNICEF, Reuters, EOI Business School, IAB Europe, Santa María la Real, and INCIBE; he also received training at the Complutense University of Madrid and the Almajan Institute.

He has three sisters and one brother—Menna (deceased), Yasmin, Mariela, and David Simon Pérez Levy—who reside in Alicante (Spain) and Fort Lauderdale (United States). He is the father of three children: Samuel Isaac, Santiago, and Miranda, all of whom reside in Spain.


Political Life

Pérez Levy worked for the Chacao Mayor's Office and the Caracas Metropolitan Mayor's Office, serving under Leopoldo López and Antonio Ledezma, respectively.

He joined the political party Primero Justicia in 2002 and later helped promote the *Redes de Participación y Justicia* (Participation and Justice Networks), which were established in 2004 to foster social action and leadership.

He also contributed to the founding of the political party Voluntad Popular, participating as a member of the International Movement during the open elections held on July 10, 2011.

He has held significant political and electoral responsibilities in the city of Caracas and the state of Amazonas. In Caracas's El Recreo parish, he coordinated—over the course of several years—more than forty polling stations, managing a team that included an equal number of station coordinators and nearly three hundred poll watchers.

As a social activist, he promoted various NGOs in Caracas and internationally, as well as other structures for neighborhood and collective engagement. In 2012, while serving as the political representative for Voluntad Popular in Madrid, he co-founded the NGO *Asociación Civil Venezolanos en España* (Venezuelans in Spain Civil Association) alongside other Venezuelans in exile. He worked directly with Isadora Zubillaga—currently an international advisor to Venezuela's president-elect, Edmundo González—and has collaborated directly with the vice-chair of the Venezuelan National Assembly's Foreign Policy Commission, Ramón López Colina, and the current president of the Assembly, Dinorah Fighera.

In 2015, in response to the growing exodus of Venezuelans fleeing the crisis in their country, he founded and led the NGO platform *Venezuela Somos Todos* (Venezuela Is All of Us) alongside a group of leaders and members of Venezuelan NGOs based in Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and the United States. Civil society members and politicians from around the world have actively joined this initiative through various campaigns.

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