MEXICO CITY (AP) — As uncertainty grows in Venezuela, interim President Delcy Rodriguez has replaced her ally President Nicolas Maduro, who was captured by the United States in a nighttime military operation.
Rodriguez has been Maduro’s vice president since 2018, overseeing much of Venezuela’s oil-dependent economy and its feared intelligence service, and is the next in line to succeed the president.
She is among a group of senior officials in Maduro’s government that now appears to be in control of Venezuela, even as U.S. President Donald Trump and other officials say they will pressure the government to adhere to its vision for the oil-rich country.
Venezuela’s high court on Saturday ordered her to serve as interim president, a leader backed by Venezuela’s military. In her televised address, Rodriguez stopped short of saying she would cooperate with Trump and called the Trump administration “extremists.”
“The only president of Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro,” Rodriguez said, surrounded by senior civilian officials and military leaders. “What was done to Venezuela was an atrocity that violated international law.”
Disagree with Trump
Rodriguez is a 56-year-old lawyer and politician who spent his long career representing the revolution launched by the late Hugo Chavez on the world stage.
News of her becoming the South American country’s interim leader came as a surprise on Saturday morning, when Trump announced that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been in contact with Rodriguez and that the Venezuelan leader was “affable” and would work with the U.S. government. Rubio said that unlike Maduro, Rodriguez is someone the government can work with.
Observers say that in doing so, the government is effectively turning its back on the opposition movement, which it insists is the winner of Venezuela’s 2024 elections just weeks ago.
Trump’s tone shifted on Sunday, as Rodriguez and other Venezuelan officials continued to complain about the Trump administration and assert that they control the country.
“If she doesn’t do the right thing, she’s going to pay a very big price, probably even bigger than Maduro,” Trump said of Rodriguez in an interview with The Atlantic.
In comments Sunday night, Trump said Rodriguez was “cooperating.”
He added that he wanted her to provide “full access”, from oil facilities to infrastructure such as roads, to rebuild. But Trump also reiterated his threat that she could “face a situation worse than Maduro” if she did not cooperate with the United States.
Asked about Rodriguez’s comments that she supported Maduro as he flew on Air Force One from Florida to Washington, Trump said, “I don’t think it was a pushback,” noting that “what you heard and what I heard are not the same person.” When a reporter told Trump that Rodriguez called the operation a kidnapping of Maduro, Trump responded: “That’s okay, that’s not a bad word.”
But before Trump’s remarks, Rubio claimed in a television interview on Sunday that he did not consider Rodriguez and her administration “legitimate” because he said the country had never held a free and fair election.
Promoted to interim president
The interim president is a lawyer educated in Britain and France, and her brother Jorge Rodríguez, president of the Maduro-controlled National Assembly, has solid left-wing credentials born of tragedy. Their father was a socialist leader who was arrested for his role in the 1976 kidnapping of American business owner William Niehaus and later died in police custody.
Unlike many in Maduro’s inner circle, the Rodriguez siblings have not been criminally prosecuted in the United States, although the interim president did face U.S. sanctions during Trump’s first term for undermining Venezuelan democracy.
Rodriguez held a number of lower-level positions during the Chávez government but rose to prominence under Maduro and was even considered his successor. She served as economy minister, foreign minister, oil minister and other positions, helping Venezuela stabilize its crisis-stricken economy after years of inflation and instability.
Rodriguez has developed strong ties with Republicans in the oil industry and Wall Street, who have balked at the idea of U.S.-led regime change. The interim president also presided over a rally launched by Maduro in response to 2017 street protests aimed at silencing the opposition-majority legislature.
Ronald Rodriguez, spokesman for the Venezuelan Observatory at the University of Rosario in Bogota, Colombia, said she has close ties with the military, which has long served as an arbiter of political disputes in Venezuela.
“She had a very special relationship with power,” he said. “She developed very strong links with armed forces personnel and managed to establish channels of dialogue with them, largely on a transactional basis.”
future in power
It’s unclear how long Rodriguez will remain in power or how long she will work with the Trump administration.
Jeff Ramsey, a senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based research group, said Rodriguez’s tougher tone toward the Trump administration may be an attempt to “save face.” Others noted that Maduro’s arrest required a degree of cooperation within the Venezuelan government.
“She cannot expect to score points with her revolutionary peers if she presents herself as a scapegoat for American interests,” Ramsey said.
Venezuela’s constitution requires that whenever the president is “permanently unable to hold office,” an election should be held within 30 days. Reasons listed include death declared by the National Assembly, resignation, removal from office or “abandonment” of duties.
This electoral timetable was strictly adhered to when Maduro’s predecessor, Chavez, died of cancer in 2013. However, the loyal Supreme Court cited another article of the Charter in Saturday’s ruling to declare Maduro’s absence “temporary.”
In this case, there is no election requirement. In contrast, the Vice-President is an unelected position with a maximum term of 90 days, which can be extended to 6 months by a vote of the National Assembly.
The Supreme Court did not mention the 180-day time limit in handing interim powers to Rodriguez, leading some to speculate that she may try to stay in power longer as she seeks to unite the disparate factions of the ruling Socialist party while protecting it from what is sure to be a tough electoral challenge.
—— Janetsky reported from Mexico City, and Debre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Associated Press writers Joshua Goodman in Miami, Darlene Superville on Air Force One and Jorge Rueda in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.
