José Manuel Olivares

As president of the Student Center at the Central University of Venezuela's medical school, Olivares helped create the biggest student movement since the Generation of 1928. The students demonstrated against excessive red tape, advocating for Internet access, fair schedules for students, updates to the school's technology and increased access to books. Olivares took to the streets in peaceful protest together with other leaders like Yon Goicoechea, Stalin González, Miguel Pizarro, Ricardo Sánchez Mujica, Freddy Guevara and David Smolansky. The students demanded freedom of expression and rejected constitutional reforms by president Hugo Chávez.

Olivares was a candidate of Un Nuevo Tiempo for Vargas state governorship in 2012, supported by other MUD parties; he lost to the incumbent governor Jorge García Carneiro by a large margin.^[1][7]

Olivares won the deputy seat in the 2015 parliamentary elections on 6 December 2016. He assumed office on 5 January 2016.

After taking office, Olivares was immediately elected to lead the Health Subcommission. Olivares used his position to highlight the poor conditions of Venezuelan hospitals, including shortages of medicine and medical and surgical supplies.^[8] He helped implement the approval of the National Assembly's Health and Humanitarian Crisis Declaration Agreement. Olivares traveled to Washington D.C. to formally petition the World Health Organization to provide medicines in the form of humanitarian aid and to give Venezuela access to the WHO's Strategic Fund.

In 2016, the National Assembly passed the Special Law to Address the National Health Crisis, which established parameters for defining when shortages would become critical and which organizations would be able to request humanitarian aid. The law was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice.^[9] The same year, there was an increase in cases of malaria in Venezuela and diseases like diphtheria reappeared.^[10] This health crisis spawned debates over the scope of legislative powers in situations like Venezuela's public health crisis. As a consequence, the Assembly approved various healthcare accords to address the health crisis. Olivares was the main voice advocating for these accords in the Assembly.^[11]

In addition to legislative action, José Manuel Olivares has been a main organizer of events like the Marcha de los Récipes, where patients marched to the Apostolic Nunciature to Venezuela, demanding access to humanitarian aid.^[12][13]

In 2017, Olivares became a candidate in Vargas regional elections again, being a Justice First candidate supported by other MUD parties without primaries, by consensus.^[14] He lost election to governor García Carneiro for the second time in a row but by a much lesser margin this time compared to 2012.^[15]

On May 10, 2017, after more than 30 days of demonstrations in Venezuela, the Venezuelan National Guard shot and killed Miguel Castillo, a 27-year-old demonstrator. Olivares denounced the shooting on Twitter, calling it an assassination.^[16][17] In 2017, Olivares' brother was detained and jailed for several months. In July 2018, a SEBIN agent informed Olivares that the intelligence agency would arrest his family if he did not cease his political activities.

On 19 July 2018, Olivares and his family fled Venezuela for Colombia.^[18] After Juan Guaidó was declared Venezuela's acting president, Olivares began assisting Guaidó in his efforts to bring humanitarian aid to Venezuela.^[19]