David Smolansky is the deputy director of the Foreign Affairs Office for Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado in Washington, D.C. He was the 2024–2025 RDI Dissident-in-Residence at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and now serves as a senior fellow at RDI.
Smolansky served as mayor of El Hatillo, a municipality of Caracas, Venezuela, where his administration gained national and international recognition for transparency and for a significant reduction in kidnappings in one of the world’s most violent capitals. His commitment to defending human rights and addressing the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Venezuela placed him at the forefront of nonviolent protests against Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship. As a result of his defense of democratic values while serving in local government, he faced arbitrary arrest warrants, removal from office, an illegal disqualification from public service, disenfranchisement, and ultimately, forced exile.
After fleeing Venezuela, the secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS) appointed him as special envoy to address the Venezuelan migration and refugee crisis—the largest displacement in the world. In that role, he authored fifteen reports and carried out more than twenty official visits to eleven countries across the Americas, advocating for policies to protect and integrate Venezuelan migrants and refugees.
Smolansky holds a B.A. in journalism from Universidad Católica Andrés Bello and a master’s degree in international public policy from Johns Hopkins University. He has also been a visiting fellow at Georgetown University and a Draper Hills fellow at Stanford University. He is the founder and president of the Miranda Center for Democracy.
