Venezuela’s court names Delcy Rodríguez acting president after Maduro seized by the United States

Venezuela’s Supreme Court has appointed Vice President Delcy Rodríguez as acting president, moving swiftly to fill a power vacuum after the United States captured President Nicolás Maduro in a dramatic overnight military operation.

In a ruling issued late on Saturday, the Constitutional Chamber said Rodríguez would assume the presidency “to guarantee administrative continuity and the comprehensive defence of the nation”. The court added that some constitutional guarantees could be temporarily restricted, meaning the acting president’s public powers may be limited.

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The decision came hours after US forces struck military sites in Caracas and other parts of the country and detained Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Both were flown to the United States and later charged in New York with weapons and drug offences.

Donald Trump, the United States president, said Washington would “run the country” until there was what he called a proper transition of power. He also warned of further attacks if necessary and said US oil companies would move into Venezuela to repair infrastructure and extract resources.

Despite those claims, Maduro’s allies remain firmly in control in Caracas. The court’s move to swear in D Rodríguez underlined the government’s determination to project continuity and authority in the face of international shock and criticism.

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Rodríguez, 56, demanded Maduro’s immediate release after taking office, insisting he remains Venezuela’s only legitimate president. “We call on the peoples of the great homeland to remain united,” she said in an address broadcast on state television. “What was done to Venezuela can be done to anyone. That brutal use of force to bend the will of the people can be carried out against any country.”

Who is Delcy Rodríguez

Delcy Rodríguez is one of the most powerful figures in Venezuela’s ruling circle and a long-time loyalist of the late Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro.

Born in Caracas on May 18, 1969, she is the daughter of Jorge Antonio Rodríguez, a left-wing activist who founded the Socialist League in the 1970s. He died in police custody in 1976 after being tortured, an episode that deeply marked Venezuela’s revolutionary movement and Maduro himself.

Her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, is president of the National Assembly and another central figure in the government.

An attorney trained at the Central University of Venezuela, Rodríguez rose rapidly through senior roles over the past decade. She served as communications minister, then foreign minister, and later led the pro-government Constituent Assembly created in 2017, a body that expanded Maduro’s powers.

In 2018, Maduro appointed her vice president, praising her as “brave, seasoned and tested in a thousand battles”. Since then, she has also held the finance portfolio and, from August 2024, the crucial oil ministry, putting her at the centre of efforts to manage the economy under heavy US sanctions.

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Though a fierce defender of the socialist project, Rodríguez is sometimes seen as more pragmatic than other figures from the Chávez era. As finance and oil minister, she pushed more orthodox economic measures to curb hyperinflation and maintained working ties with parts of the private sector.

Caracas-based journalist Sleither Fernandez said her prominence made her a key figure for Washington. “This high profile within the government is what has likely made the negotiation attractive to the United States,” he told Al Jazeera.

Rodríguez has also held contacts with Republican linked figures in the US oil and security world, including Erik Prince and former Trump envoy Richard Grenell, even as she publicly rejected any suggestion that Venezuela would submit to foreign control.

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Maduro once described her as a “tiger” for her uncompromising defence of his government. That reputation is now being tested as she steps into the presidency at a moment of extraordinary pressure, with the country facing external threats, internal uncertainty, and renewed scrutiny over the future of its vast oil wealth.

Venezuela’s government has condemned the US operation as an attempt to seize its strategic resources and undermine its political independence.