Prior to the creation of the PSUV in 2007, he was the national director of its main predecessor, the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR), having been one of its founders in 1997.
[2] Lara played a key role in the efforts to institute internal democracy in the MVR; in June 2003 it became the first Venezuelan political party to do so, with over a million members taking part in the first elections.
[2] In early 2006 Lara sharply criticized the government's media policy, and was subsequently appointed Minister of Communication and Information, replacing Yuri Pimentel after the latter had been in office only seven months; he was succeeded by Andrés Izarra.
On 10 September 2010 at 4:30 in the afternoon, under a heavy rain, Willian Lara disappeared after being involved in a traffic accident near the edge of the river Paya in Guárico State.
[4] At his funeral, president Hugo Chávez said that "Lara will be remembered as one of the founders of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela", (full name of the country since the new Constitution was approved in 2000).