Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez could take charge of Venezuela’s government after Donald Trump said on Saturday that Nicolás Maduro had been captured by US forces.
Maduro has called Rodríguez a “tigress” for her fierce defense of the socialist government.
The vice president works closely with her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, who is the head of the National Assembly.
Rodríguez, 56 years old and originally from Caracas, was born on May 18, 1969, and is the daughter of leftist guerrilla Jorge Antonio Rodríguez, who founded the revolutionary Socialist League party in the 1970s.
Rodríguez’s duties as Minister of Finance and Hydrocarbons, simultaneously with her position as Vice President, have made her a key figure in the management of the Venezuelan economy and given her great influence in the country’s weakened private sector. It has continued to pursue orthodox economic policies in an attempt to combat excessive inflation.
Rodríguez asked the US government on Saturday to provide proof of life for Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in an audio message played on state television, but their exact whereabouts are unknown.
She is a lawyer graduated from the Central University of Venezuela and rose quickly through the political ranks in the last decade, serving as Minister of Communication and Information between 2013 and 2014.
Rodríguez, known for being a lover of fashion and designer clothing, was Minister of Foreign Affairs between 2014 and 2017. In that position, she tried to sneak into a meeting of the Mercosur trading bloc in Buenos Aires, after Venezuela was suspended from the group.
She served as head of a pro-government Constituent Assembly, which expanded Maduro’s powers, in 2017.
Rodríguez was named vice president in June 2018, and Maduro announced the appointment in
* In August 2024, Maduro added the Ministry of Hydrocarbons to Rodríguez’s positions. There he was tasked with managing the escalation of US sanctions on the country’s most important industry.
