The capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by US military forces has focused attention on Delcy Rodriguez, the executive vice president chosen by the president as his right-hand woman.

A Late Saturday afternoon, Venezuela's Supreme Court of Justice ordered that she assume the presidency in the face of Maduro's "forced absence." In a statement, the president of the court's Constitutional Chamber, Tania D'Amelio, argued that the Constitution grants the vice president the power to fill the temporary or permanent absence of the president, such as the one the country is currently experiencing. The magistrate referred to the US military operation that resulted in the arrest of Maduro and his wife as a "kidnapping" and a "foreign aggression." With the appointment of Rodriguez as interim president, the court grants her the power to lead "the defense of sovereignty" and "preserve constitutional order," the statement said. Hours before the Supreme Court's ruling, Rodriguez, in a televised address from Caracas, also condemned the US action and described the capture of Maduro and his wife as an act of aggression. his wife of “illegal and illegitimate kidnapping.”

“What is being done to Venezuela is barbaric,” Rodriguez asserted during an address to the nation broadcast on radio and television.

“Besieging it, blocking it, is barbaric, violating every mechanism of the international human rights system and constituting crimes against humanity. Let no blockade attempt to twist the will of these people,” said Rodriguez, who called on his compatriots to come out in defense of their country and affirmed that “in Venezuela there is only one president, whose name is Nicolas Maduro Moros.”

With these words, he responded to what US President Donald Trump said during the first press conference after Maduro's capture. In the press conference agreed to explain the military operation carried out this Saturday,Trump already suggested that Rodriguez could be the person who would lead the government after Maduro's departure, but that she would work in alignment with the US government in the recovery of Venezuela. The US president asserted that Rodriguez had been in contact with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and implied that she would apparently be willing to comply with all of Washington's demands. “He has no alternative,” she pointed out.

However, shortly after Trump's press conference, Rodriguez made a national radio and television address in which she reaffirmed her position of considering Maduro as “the only president of Venezuela,” denounced his capture as a “kidnapping,” and added that Venezuela “will not surrender, will not give up, and will never be a colony of anyone.”

These last statements are consistent with the Delcy Rodriguez whom Maduro has previously called a “tigress” for her defense of the Bolivarian socialism project.

In fact, those who know her often say that she is “very intelligent,” but also that she is “dogmatic.”

But who is Delcy Rodriguez really?

Left-wing political lineage

Delcy Rodriguez has politics in her genes.

This 56-year-old lawyer is the daughter of Jorge Antonio Rodriguez, who was a guerrilla fighter in The 1960s and died in police custody in 1976, after being arrested for his involvement in the kidnapping of William Niehous, a high-ranking executive of a US company operating in Venezuela. Rodriguez's death caused public outrage, as it resulted from the torture and mistreatment he suffered at the hands of the police. This death would become part of the motivation that led Delcy to study Law, a degree she pursued at the Central University of Venezuela and which she later continued with studies in Labor and Union Law in France. "I made a decision to seek justice in my father's case and I entered law school. There I immediately applied to be a research assistant at the Institute of Criminal Studies," she once commented. This event also influenced his approach to politics. “The Bolivarian Revolution, the arrival of Commander Hugo Chavez, was our personal revenge,” she said in a 2018 interview, although she asserted that she was not acting out of hatred.

From Chavez to Maduro

Like her older brother, Jorge Rodriguez, the current president of the National Assembly, Delcy Rodriguez began her rise through the political ranks during Hugo Chavez's government, when he first joined the cabinet to serve for a few months as Minister of the Office of the President. But it was after Maduro came to power that he held numerous positions at the top of the Executive Branch. Initially, she was Minister of Communication and Information, Minister of Economy, and Foreign Minister. And, more recently,she rose to the Executive Vice Presidency, a position to which she has also added the responsibilities of Minister of Hydrocarbons. She was also the first president of the controversial National Constituent Assembly elected in 2017, a highly relevant position because—at least in legal theory—it held more power than the presidency, being considered a supraconstitutional body. Like her brother Jorge, Delcy has been a key figure that the Maduro government has used as a political operative both inside and outside Venezuela. "Delcy works in tandem with her brother. She is a little less intellectual, more operational. They are well-educated people who have filled a void as a consequence of the absolute abandonment of capable people in the government," said political scientist Nicmer Evans in an interview with BBC Mundo. 2024

Diplomatic Agent

Delcy Rodriguez formally held the position of Foreign Minister under Maduro between 2014 and 2017, but beyond holding the position, she has always been one of the visible faces of the government both inside and outside Venezuela.

In fact, in recent years, during which Maduro reduced his trips abroad, she has been a key operator in relations with allied countries such as Turkey, China, and Iran.

On the international stage, Rodriguez has also been involved in several incidents, such as when, as Foreign Minister, she attempted to attend a Mercosur meeting in Buenos Aires in 2016, after Venezuela had been excluded from the bloc.

Years later, what the Spanish press called “Delcygate” occurred, a controversy that erupted after Rodriguez landed on a plane in the early hours of January 20, 2020. privately at Barajas Airport in Madrid, where she met for several hours with the then Spanish Minister of Transport, Jose Luis Abalos, despite being under a Schengen entry ban issued by Austria. Rodriguez is one of approximately fifty high-ranking Venezuelan officials against whom the EU has imposed sanctions due to human rights violations and the erosion of democracy in Venezuela. She was sanctioned by the US in 2018, when the US Treasury also imposed similar measures against her brother, Jorge Rodriguez, as well as against Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino and First Lady Cilia Flores.

Then, as now, Delcy Rodriguez has rejected these kinds of measures and openly questioned these US policies.

So, going from that to being Trump's supposed instrument for a post-Maduro transition in Venezuela may require a level of political contortionism that can only be achieved under the pressure of the most stubborn realities.

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