“We need the world to know what is happening in Venezuela,” declared Gabriel Ferrer ’26 on an Instagram reel that has since reached almost 18 thousand views. He went on to give a passionate rundown of Venezuela’s current post-election crisis. “We’re now in the process of defending the truth, and we’re asking the international community to help us,” he said.
Ferrer, born and raised in Venezuela, has spent the weeks since the presidential election trying to raise awareness about what is happening in his country. “People just don’t know about it. That’s what we want to change,” he explained in an interview with the Independent. “Because at the end of the day, we’re Harvard students. We should be familiar with what is happening.”
In his efforts to get the word out at Harvard, Ferrer has encountered numerous challenges. He explained that many undergraduate groups are hesitant to release statements on Venezuela, particularly after the Israel-Palestine statements from campus organizations last spring heightened tensions on and beyond campus. “People are scared,” Ferrer said. “I was trying to generate dialogue through an undergraduate organization that I am a part of, and people were pushing back, raising questions like, ‘How is this going to affect us? Are people going to look at us badly just because we’re involving ourselves in politics?’”
But Ferrer said that the crisis in Venezuela can be supported without provoking controversy because the Venezuelan opposition movement is nonviolent. “The movement is peaceful,” he explained. “María Corina Machado’s idea is to push for a peaceful transition of the government. So we’ve been trying to get that fear [of speaking up] away from Harvard students, but it’s been hard.”
Domestic Venezuelans also take a risk when speaking out against the crisis. Any Venezuelan who protests against the authoritarian Maduro regime risks imprisonment, and in many cases, death. Operación Tun-Tun (Operation Knock-Knock) is what the government is calling its sweeping crackdown on protests nationwide. Nicolás Maduro himself reports over 2,000 arrests since the election, and external sources, including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States, report nearly 2,000 arrests. There is an indeterminate but growing number of protestors who have been killed.
But even in the face of heightened violence and fear, Ferrer says that things are different this time. In contrast to the many attempts since 2002 to topple the Chavismo regime, Ferrer says that three key aspects make this opposition attempt stronger than those that have preceded it.
For the first time in Chavismo’s history, there exists proof of election fraud, which has bolstered the Venezuelan cause to the global stage. “We have not been able to prove the fraud before. Now, we have proof that the international community and the Venezuelan people can confirm,” Ferrer said. “We can see that Edmundo-Gonzalez won by a landslide, and that is after everything that the Maduro regime did to prevent people from voting.”
In response to the critical evidence, leftist leaders, including Chilean president Gabriel Boric, have spoken out against Maduro. “I have no doubt that the Maduro regime has attempted to commit fraud,” Boric stated during a press conference held the day after the Venezuelan elections.
Similarly, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil called the Maduro regime “authoritarian” and “very unpleasant,” which is a significant shift from his commentary just one year ago, when he described the labeling of the Maduro regime as authoritarian as “constructed” and “unfair.”
Ferrer commented on this growing opposition, explaining that “now that we have the proof, it’s really hard for Venezuela’s traditional allies to associate with the Maduro regime publicly.” President Lula has historically been one of Maduro’s closest allies, which is why, Ferrer said, it is so important that he publicly denounced the Maduro regime. “That’s what we want,” Ferrer said. “We want the Venezuelan government to be left out from all of their traditional allies.”
The second aspect that Ferrer identifies that gives the opposition movement unprecedented power is its level of cohesiveness. “The Venezuelan opposition was never united. It never had the same interests. There was never such a centralized and united movement until now,” he explained. “But now, María Machado’s leadership has been incredible. She has been such a strong leader [of the opposition], and it’s also very impactful that she’s a woman. She has stood her ground, gone against all odds, brushed off death threats, and brought back the faith and the unity to the movement,” Ferrer said.
Machado has emerged as the most significant beacon of hope for Venezuelans within the opposition in the 25 years since Chavismo began. Despite the election results, she has remained steadfast, continually encouraging her over eight million Instagram followers to continue protesting, saying, “The world will again see that the Venezuelans are united, and that there is no turning back because we will not leave the streets.”
“She represents a light in the middle of all of the darkness that Chavismo has created,” Ferrer said, comparing Machado’s eminent leadership to that of Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela. “The most important thing [Machado] has accomplished is uniting all the people who are against the regime, from the far right to the far left of the political spectrum,” he emphasized.
The final component that Ferrer pointed to is the emerging fractured nature of the Maduro regime. “The regime had internal problems, but the people never saw them,” Ferrer explained. “Chavismo was always able to hide what was happening inside the nucleus. Now the cracks are emerging, and the desperation of the Chavismo movement is visible, like ‘we don’t know what to do.’ And now the only thing they have left is repression. That’s the only thing they are doing.”
The Maduro regime has begun intensifying its tactics as more governments, groups, public figures, and ordinary citizens speak out against the election. The government has escalated beyond its usual detention of protestors by detaining and shooting several journalists. Additionally, the government passed an “anti-NGO” law, which “punishes efforts to assist victims and defend human rights” in Venezuela, as reported by Amnesty International.
Ferrer emphasized how he believes that the global community should be supporting Venezuelans through the Maduro regime’s severe repressive tactics. “We want sovereignty first, and we want to fix our own country,” he said. “But we’re asking the international community to spread the word, because the people in Venezuela are not able to.”
Ferrer is eager to be a voice for the Venezuelans who cannot speak for themselves. Last year, he published his thoughts on the political-economic context of Venezuela’s crisis in ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America. Given Venezuela’s constant crisis, Ferrer has been interested in political science and economics from a very young age. “I’ve been exposed to political science and economics almost my whole life. I started worrying about inflation at about eight years old when some people don’t even know what it is when they are twenty,” he said.
This fall, Ferrer is starting his junior year at Harvard. His love for his country drives him to learn. “I’ve been exposed to many good opportunities in my life that I would’ve never expected. Being able to use what I’ve learned to help my people—that’s a passion of mine. That’s why I’m studying economics and government.”
“I think that the Venezuelan people feel that this time things are different, that something big can happen,” Ferrer said. But regardless of the outcome in the coming months, one thing is for sure: Gabriel Ferrer is not giving up on his country. “I would love to maybe one day come back and try to make some change—to help my people.”
Abril Rodriguez Diaz ’26 (abrilrodriguezdiaz@college.harvard.edu) is the Forum Editor of the Independent.