David Smolansky Urosa (born 27 May 1985) is a Venezuelan politician, journalist, one of the leaders of the Popular Will party and former Mayor of El Hatillo municipality in Caracas, Venezuela for the period 2014–2017. He was recognized by the Junior Chamber International as World's Outstanding Young Politician 2015. Threatened with prison, he has been in exile since 13 September 2017. He was described by Americas Quarterly as the politician among ten people who would someday help rebuild Venezuela. Life Smolansky is a second generation descendant of immigrants who left the Communist bloc. His grandparents fled Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union and settled in Cuba where they lived for 43 years; in 1970 they escaped from Cuba to Venezuela when his father was 13 years old. The son of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, he received a multicultural and multireligious family education. In February 2019, Donald Trump presented the former mayor ("one of the youngest mayors in Venezuelan history") to a Miami crowd of fellow Venezuelan expatriates with the following words: "Sadly, David is the third generation of his family to flee the agony of socialism and communism. David’s grandparents fled the Soviet Union in 1927, and his father fled communist Cuba in 1970." The US president added that"As David said, 'The difference I want to have from my father and grandfather is to go back to my country.' [Applause] 'My grandparents never went back to Kiev… my father has not been back to Havana. I hope I can [soon] return to Venezuela.' [Applause] I think that will happen, David.” Education Smolansky completed elementary school and high school in U.E. Colegio El Penon (IEA), received his degree in Journalism at the Andres Bello Catholic University, then did a Masters in Political Science at Simon Bolivar University. He later received a scholarship in Georgetown University for the Global Competitiveness Leadership Program. Political life Beginnings in politics Smolansky began his public appearances as one of the college students who led the protest against the kidnapping and murder of the Faddoul brothers in Caracas. Subsequently, he became one of the leaders of the student movement that protested against the closure of Radio Caracas Television (RCTV) to claim the right to freedom of expression which would afterwards win the elections in 2007, in which was rejected Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez' proposal to reform the Constitution. In 2009, the