Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez speaks previous portraits of late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the liberator Simon Bolivar throughout the presentation of the 2026 fiscal 12 months finances on the Nationwide Congress in Caracas on Dec. 4, 2025.
Pedro Mattey | Afp | Getty Photos
The U.S. seize of Venezuelan chief Nicolas Maduro — praised by President Donald Trump as beautiful and highly effective — leaves behind uncertainty about who’s working the oil-rich nation.
Trump mentioned on Saturday that Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, a part of the highly effective cabal on the high of the nation’s authorities, had been sworn in after Maduro’s arrest and that she had spoken with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, resulting in hypothesis that she would take the reins.
Beneath Venezuela’s structure, Rodriguez turns into performing president in Maduro’s absence and the nation’s high courtroom ordered her to imagine the function late Saturday evening.
However shortly after Trump’s remarks, Rodriguez appeared on state tv flanked by her brother, the top of the nationwide meeting Jorge Rodriguez, Inside Minister Diosdado Cabello and Protection Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez and mentioned that Maduro remained Venezuela’s solely president.
The joint look indicated the group that shared energy with Maduro is staying united – for now.
Trump publicly closed the door Saturday on working with opposition chief and Nobel Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, broadly seen as Maduro’s most credible opponent, saying she would not have help contained in the nation.
After Machado was barred from working in Venezuela’s 2024 elections, worldwide observers say her stand-in candidate gained the vote in a landslide, regardless of Maduro’s authorities claiming victory.
Civilian-military energy stability
For greater than a decade, actual energy in Venezuela has been held by a small circle of senior officers. Analysts and officers say although that the system relies on a sprawling internet of loyalists and safety organs, fueled by corruption and surveillance.
Inside the internal circle, a civilian-military stability reigns. Every member has their very own pursuits and patronage networks. At the moment Rodriguez and her brother symbolize the civilian aspect. Padrino and Cabello symbolize the army aspect.
This energy construction makes dismantling Venezuela’s present authorities extra advanced than eradicating Maduro, in keeping with interviews with present and former U.S. officers, Venezuelan and U.S. army analysts and safety consultants to Venezuela’s opposition.
“You possibly can take away as many items of the Venezuelan authorities as you want, however it must be a number of actors at totally different ranges to maneuver the needle,” mentioned a former U.S. official concerned in prison investigations in Venezuela.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (L) and his Inside Minister Diosdado Cabello participate in a rally to commemorate the thirty third anniversary of late President Hugo Chavez’s 1992 failed army coup towards the federal government (1989-1993) of Carlos Andres Perez in Caracas on Feb. 4, 2025.
Pedro Mattey | Afp | Getty Photos
An enormous query mark surrounds Cabello, who exerts affect over the nation’s army and civilian counterintelligence companies, which conduct widespread home espionage.
“The main focus is now on Diosdado Cabello,” mentioned Venezuelan army strategist Jose Garcia. “As a result of he’s probably the most ideological, violent and unpredictable component of the Venezuelan regime.”
The United Nations discovered each SEBIN, the civilian company, and DGCIM, the army intelligence service, have dedicated crimes towards humanity as a part of a state plan to crush dissent. Eleven former detainees – together with some who had been as soon as safety personnel themselves – described electrical shocks, simulated drownings, and sexual abuse at DGCIM black websites to Reuters in interviews earlier than Maduro’s seize.
“They need you to really feel like you’re a cockroach in a cage of elephants, that they’re larger,” mentioned a former DGCIM agent who was arrested and accused of treason in 2020 after having contact with army dissidents.
In latest weeks, as america mounted its largest army build-upin Latin America in many years, Cabello has appeared on dwell TV ordering the DGCIM to “go and get the terrorists” and warning “whoever strays, we’ll know.”
He repeated the rhetoric in a state tv look on Saturday, clad in a flak jacket and helmet and surrounded by closely armed guards.
Cabello has additionally been carefully related to pro-government militias, notably teams of motorcycle-riding armed civilians often known as colectivos.
Generals management key sectors
Cabello, a former army officer and a significant participant within the socialist get together, has affect over a significant fraction of the armed forces, though Venezuela’s army has been formally run by Protection Minister Padrino for greater than ten years.
Venezuela has as many as 2,000 generals and admirals, greater than double the quantity in america. Senior and retired officers management meals distribution, uncooked supplies and the state oil firm PDVSA, whereas dozens of generals sit on the boards of personal companies.
Past contracts, army officers revenue from illicit commerce, defectors and present and former U.S. investigators say.
Paperwork from an opposition safety guide, shared with the U.S. army and seen by Reuters, say commanders near Cabello and Padrino are assigned to key brigades alongside Venezuela’s borders and in industrial hubs.
The brigades, whereas tactically essential, additionally sit on main smuggling routes.
“There are some 20 to 50 officers within the Venezuelan army who have to go, in all probability much more, to completely take away this regime,” mentioned a lawyer who has represented a member of senior Venezuelan management.
Some may be contemplating leaping ship. The lawyer mentioned that round a dozen former officers and present generals had reached out after Maduro’s seize, hoping to chop a take care of the U.S. by providing intelligence in change for protected passage and authorized immunity.
However these near Cabello mentioned he was not at the moment serious about slicing a deal, the lawyer mentioned.
