Maduro Is Out But It’s Unclear Who Is Running Venezuela
January 3 (Reuters) – The US capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, whom President Donald Trump praised as striking and powerful, leaves behind uncertainty about who rules the oil-rich country.
Trump said on Saturday that Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, part of the powerful group at the top of the country’s government, was sworn in after Maduro’s arrest and spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, prompting speculation that she would take the reins.
Under Venezuela’s constitution, Rodriguez becomes acting president in Maduro’s absence, and the country’s supreme court ruled late Saturday night that he would assume that post.
But shortly after Trump’s statements, Rodriguez appeared on state television alongside his brother, national assembly speaker Jorge Rodriguez, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, and said that Maduro remained the sole president of Venezuela.
The joint outlook showed that the group that shares power with Maduro remains united for now.
On Saturday, Trump publicly closed the door on working with opposition leader and Nobel Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, who is seen as Maduro’s most reliable rival, saying she does not have support at home.
After Machado was banned from running in Venezuela’s 2024 elections, international observers say his proxy candidate won the vote overwhelmingly, even as Maduro’s government claimed victory.
CIVIL-MILITARY POWER BALANCE
For more than a decade, real power in Venezuela has been in the hands of a small circle of top officials. But analysts and officials say the system depends on a sprawling network of loyalists and security organs fueled by corruption and surveillance.
Civilian-military balance prevails in the immediate vicinity. Each member has their own interests and patronage networks. Currently, Rodriguez and his brother represent the civilian side. Padrino and Cabello represent the military side.
This power structure makes dismantling Venezuela’s current government more complicated than removing Maduro, according to interviews with current and former U.S. officials, Venezuelan and U.S. military analysts, and security advisers to the Venezuelan opposition.
“You can take out as many parts of the Venezuelan government as you want, but you have to have multiple actors at different levels to move the needle,” said a former U.S. official involved in criminal investigations in Venezuela.
There is a big question mark around Cabello, who has influence over the country’s military and civilian counterintelligence agencies, which conduct widespread domestic espionage activities.
“The focus is on Diosdado Cabello right now,” said Venezuelan military strategist Jose Garcia. “Because he is the most ideological, violent and unpredictable element of the Venezuelan regime.”
The United Nations found that both the civilian organization SEBIN and the military intelligence service DGCIM committed crimes against humanity as part of the state’s plan to crush dissent. Eleven former detainees, including onetime security personnel, told Reuters in interviews before Maduro’s capture of electric shocks, simulated drownings and sexual abuse at DGCIM black sites.
“They want you to feel like a cockroach in an elephant’s cage, to feel like they are bigger,” said a former DGCIM agent who was arrested and charged with treason in 2020 after contacting military dissidents.
In recent weeks, as the United States carried out its largest military buildup in Latin America in decades, Cabello ordered the DGCIM on live television to “go and capture the terrorists” and warned that “whoever goes astray, we will know.”
He repeated the rhetoric in a speech on state television on Saturday, wearing a bulletproof vest and helmet and surrounded by heavily armed guards.
Cabello also has close ties to pro-government militias, particularly groups of armed civilians riding motorcycles known as kolektivos.
GENERAL CONTROL KEY SECTORS
Cabello, a former military officer and a major player in the socialist party, has influence over a significant part of the armed forces, even though the Venezuelan military has been officially led by Defense Minister Padrino for more than a decade.
There are about 2,000 generals and admirals in Venezuela; This is more than double that in the USA. Senior and retired military officers control food distribution, raw materials and the state oil company PDVSA, while dozens of generals sit on the boards of private firms.
Beyond the contracts, defectors and current and former U.S. investigators say military officials profit from illegal trade.
Documents shared with the US military by an opposition security adviser and seen by Reuters indicate that commanders close to Cabello and Padrino have been assigned to key brigades along Venezuela’s borders and in industrial centers.
Although the brigades are tactically important, they are also located on important smuggling routes.
“There are 20 to 50 officers in the Venezuelan military, with probably even more to go to completely dismantle this regime,” said a lawyer representing a member of the senior Venezuelan leadership.
Some may be considering jumping ship. About a dozen former officials and current generals contacted the United States after Maduro’s capture, hoping to make a deal by offering intelligence in exchange for safe passage and legal immunity, the lawyer said.
But the attorney said those close to Cabello say she is not interested in making a deal right now.
(Reporting by Sarah Kinosian in Mexico City; Additional reporting by Phil Stewart in Washington and REUTERS; Editing by Julia Symmes Cobb and Suzanne Goldenberg)
