The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yván Gil, on behalf of the President of the Republic, Nicolás Maduro, and the Venezuelan people, congratulated this Saturday Catherine Connolly, president-elect of Ireland, for her resounding victory in the elections of October 24, 2025.
The message was published by the Chancellor through his Telegram channel where he highlighted Connolly’s leadership that opens a new perspective for Europe: “a brave voice for peace, contrary to the war and arms agenda, committed to the defense of oppressed peoples. “His firm position against the genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza is a moral example for the world.”
“We extend this celebration to the progressive coalition made up of the Labor Party, Sinn Féin, Social Democrats, People Before Profit and Green Party, whose unity expresses the strength of the people when they fight for social justice, equality and dignity,” Gil wrote.
Foreign Minister Gil expressed Venezuela’s willingness to advance together in the construction of a multicentric and pluripolar international order based on respect, sovereignty and solidarity cooperation.
The next president had the backing of the progressive bloc of the Dáil (lower house), including Sinn Féin, the opposition leader. Connolly extended his thanks “to everyone,” even “those who didn’t vote for me,” in his first opening gesture.
Connolly, a 68-year-old lawyer, has promised to maintain the vindictive spirit of the outgoing president, Labor veteran Michael D. Higgins, who won the support of crowds for breaking with the usual neutrality of the office by taking a position on international issues such as the genocide in the Gaza Strip or the war in Ukraine.
The newly elected president has stated that “American money has financed” Israel’s crimes in Gaza, as well as regretting Europe’s passivity in the face of them. Likewise, he has criticized NATO’s warlike rhetoric, the increasing militarization of the European Union and its submission to the United States.
Connolly, married and mother of two, was born into a large working-class family in County Galway. In 1981 she completed a master’s degree in psychology at the University of Leeds, England, where she worked as a clinical psychologist before returning to Ireland to complete a law degree.
She practiced as a lawyer from 1991 to 1999, when she was elected as a Labor Party councilor on Galway City Council, of which she was also mayor between 2004 and 2005. There she achieved a good reputation as an advocate for different social issues associated with homelessness and the climate crisis. However, she has been singled out for her participation as a lawyer in cases of evictions from several banks during the financial crisis, for which she has been described as a contradictory and populist figure.
In 2007 she left Labor to run in the general elections of that year as an independent, but she did not obtain her seat in the Dublin Dáil (Lower House) until the 2016 elections. As an MP she took on the defense of numerous social issues, and stood out for denouncing Western interventionism in conflicts such as Syria, a country she visited in 2018.
In 2020 she became the first female vice-president of the Dáil, thus increasing her chances of running for president and winning.
