Maduro is out but what comes next for Venezuelans remains unclear
A cast of characters in Caracas may have a role but none so much as the US president
Michael Stott
President Donald Trump may have captured the leader of Venezuela’s revolutionary socialist government but it remains possible that the regime Nicolás Maduro headed will survive under a fresh guise.
After the bold US military operation to snatch the Venezuelan autocrat, Trump said that Washington would “run” the oil-rich South American nation for a transition period of unspecified duration.
But without an American presence — Washington’s embassy in Caracas closed in 2019 and last night’s US boots were only fleetingly on the ground — it was not clear who would take command of a country whose economy is in ruins and around a quarter of whose population has fled abroad.
Trump has repeatedly attacked Maduro as a “narco-terrorist” and an illegitimate leader, but has not said who he wants in charge of Venezuela.
His Saturday news conference was long on references to the country’s oil industry — Venezuela has the world’s largest proven reserves — but short on mentions of fresh elections or democracy.
Opposition leader María Corina Machado has called for Edmundo González, considered by many Western governments the real victor of elections last year stolen by Maduro, to be sworn in as Venezuela’s president but Trump did not mention González on Saturday.
Vice-president Delcy Rodríguez is the most obvious successor to Maduro.
Trump said Marco Rubio, US secretary of state, had already spoken to her and “she’s essentially willing to do what we think is necessary”.
However Rodríguez later appeared on Venezuelan state television to call for the release of Maduro and his wife.
“We will not be anyone’s colony, what is being done to Venezuela is barbaric,” she said.
Other powerful “chavista” figures are waiting in the wings.
Defence minister Vladimir Padrino López and interior minister Diosdado Cabello, who command the regime’s hard power, appeared in separate video broadcasts referring to US attacks and vowing defiance.
Neither has any interest in a democratic transition and either one could yet come out on top in a power struggle.
Venezuela’s allies China, Russia, Iran and Cuba issued condemnations of the US attack but there was little sign that any of them had the appetite for much more than official statements.
Maduro’s alliances with those American foes presented a clear challenge to Trump’s revived Monroe Doctrine that America should control its own “backyard”.
Now that he has waded in with a dramatic show of military force, the US president has the responsibility for what comes next.
The streets of central Caracas were largely deserted on Saturday morning, with public transport down and a few Venezuelans walking to buy supplies.
There was no immediate sign of the big deployment of security forces promised in a government statement after the US attacks, nor of street protests by the opposition.
Venezuelans have learned to their cost over the past two decades that the “Chavista” regime is not afraid to use lethal force to put down protests if necessary.
After several failed uprisings in the past, they are unlikely to risk their lives this time unless there are clear signs that the military and police will join rather than attack them.
The surviving leaders of Maduro’s regime also face a challenge.
None of the senior government figures in Caracas has control over the key levers of power that he enjoyed.
Rodríguez has acted as Venezuela’s economic tsar, negotiating oil contracts and trying to win investment, but has little sway over the powerful armed forces or the regime’s feared security apparatus.
Her brother Jorge has been Maduro’s top political fixer and international negotiator but does not control hard power either.
Padrino López, by contrast, has long been the top military figure but has limited political influence while Cabello, a much-feared hardliner, controls the nationwide militias set up by Hugo Chávez, founder of Venezuela’s “Bolivarian revolution”, to defend the regime.
During his first administration, Trump recognised then-opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate president, signing up around 60 countries to do the same.
Despite the international backing, Guaidó’s shadow government never won actual power, allowing Maduro to hold on. Guaidó eventually fled into exile.
This time around, Trump has been much more cautious towards the Venezuelan opposition.
He has not met Machado, appeared to dismiss her as a leadership option on Saturday, and has focused instead on the removal of Maduro.
Trump’s aims appear to be multiple: as a major source of migration, a big oil nation, a key ally of Russia and China and a significant transit country for drugs, Venezuela is home to several of his preoccupations.
Will he prove more successful in resolving them this time around?
About eight million Venezuelans in exile, most in other Latin American countries, are today celebrating the departure of the man whose misgovernment forced them to leave the country.
But they are also asking whether what comes next will be the return to democracy they long for — or a fresh wave of repression from a regime that has already endured far longer than anyone expected.
Having used force to depose and extract Maduro, Trump now owns the consequences.
The responsibility for a peaceful transition in Venezuela and a restoration of democracy is squarely his.
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