Analysis: Why Trump chose Maduro's VP over Nobel winner

1 day ago

Paul AdamsDiplomatic correspondent

Who is Venezuela's new interim president, Delcy Rodríguez?

Amid the many questions swirling since last weekend's dramatic events in Caracas – and there are many – one that refuses to go away centres on the bespectacled woman now leading what US officials are calling Venezuela's "interim authorities".

Why Delcy?

What is it about Delcy Rodríguez, daughter of a former Marxist guerilla and deputy to ousted dictator Nicolas Maduro, that has caught the eye of the Trump administration?

And why has Washington decided on an avowed "Chavista" revolutionary to stay in power, rather than backing the opposition leader, María Corina Machado, whose opposition movement is widely believed to have won the 2024 presidential elections?

The answer, according to one former US ambassador to Venezuela, is simple.

"They've gone for stability over democracy," says Charles Shapiro, who served as George W Bush's ambassador in Caracas from 2002-04.

"They've kept the dictatorial regime in place without the dictator. The henchmen are still there.

"I think it's risky as hell."

But the alternative, involving wholesale regime change and backing Machado's opposition movement, would have involved other dangers, including potential infighting among opposition figures and the alienation of those Venezuelans – perhaps as many as 30% – who voted for Maduro.

Watch: "I want a president who's involved" - Michiganders weigh in on Maduro's seizure

In his dramatic news conference on Saturday morning, US President Donald Trump shocked many observers by dismissing the Nobel Peace Prize winner Machado as "not respected" inside Venezuela, while describing Rodríguez as "gracious."

"I was very surprised to hear the disqualification of María Corina Machado by President Trump," Kevin Whitaker, former deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Caracas, says.

"Her movement was massively elected... and so disqualifying Machado, in effect, disqualified that whole movement."

The speed, and apparent ease, with which Maduro was removed and Rodríguez installed led some observers to speculate that the former vice-president might have been in on the plan.

"I think it's very telling that we just went after Maduro and the vice president survived," says former CIA officer Lindsay Moran.

"It's obvious that there were high-placed sources. My immediate speculation was that those high placed sources were in the office of the VP, if not the VP herself."

But Phil Gunson, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group who lives in Caracas, says the conspiracy theory doesn't stand up to close scrutiny, given that enormous power still rests with Venezuela's defence minister, General Vladimir Padrino Lopez, and hardline interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, both loyal Maduro allies.

"Why would she sell out Maduro, leaving her defenceless, internally, against the guys who really control the guns," Gunson says.

Instead, the decision to back Rodríguez followed warnings that installing Machado could result in dangerous levels of instability.

In October, an ICG report warned that "Washington should beware of regime change".

"The risks of violence in any post-Maduro scenario should not be downplayed," the report urged, saying elements of the security forces could launch a guerilla war against the new authorities.

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"We were warning people in the administration, this is not going to work," Gunson says. "There will be violent chaos, it will be your fault and you'll own it."

On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported the existence of a classified US intelligence assessment reaching the same conclusions and determining that members of the Maduro regime, including Rodríguez, were in a better position to lead a temporary government.

The White House hasn't commented publicly on the report, but made it clear that it plans to work with Rodríguez for the foreseeable future.

"It belies a bit of hard-nosed realism on the part of the Trump administration," says Henry Ziemer, an associate fellow with the Americas programme at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies.

But the challenges, he says, have only just begun.

"The capture of Maduro was the easy part. The broader rebuilding of Venezuela, the oil, drugs and democracy goals... are going to take much more time to come to fruition."

For now, though, Rodríguez seems to be someone the Trump administration feels it can deal with.

"She's been a bit of an economic reformer," Gunson says. "She's aware of the need for an economic opening and she's not averse to the idea of bringing back foreign capital."

Watch: The key questions on Trump’s actions on Venezuela

Ziemer agrees that Rodríguez may not find it difficult to do Washington's bidding when it comes to rolling out the welcome mat for US oil companies, offering greater co-operation on counter-narcotics and even scaling down Venezuela's relations with Cuba, China and Russia, especially if it means the gradual lifting of US sanctions.

"I think she can deliver on that," he says.

"But if the US is asking for genuine progress towards a democratic transition, that becomes much harder."

At the moment, this does not appear to be high on Washington's list of priorities.

In remarks to the media on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke of a three-stage plan for Venezuela, starting with stabilisation of the country and the marketing of 30-50 million barrels of oil under US supervision.

The plan would lead to what Rubio called "a process of reconciliation", including amnesties for opposition forces, the release of political prisoners and the rebuilding of civil society.

"The third phase, of course, will be one of transition," he said, without elaborating.

Article 233 of Venezuela's constitution calls for fresh elections within 30 days of a president becoming "permanently unavailable to serve" - something that would seem to apply to a situation in which Maduro languishes in a New York prison cell while awaiting trial.

But in an interview with NBC News on Monday, Trump said elections were not on the horizon. "We have to fix the country first," he said. "You can't have an election."

Gunson says Washington's decision not to go for regime change in the short term might make sense, but the absence of a medium- or long-term prospect is disappointing.

"Trump may be getting something out of this, but Venezuelans aren't," he says. "Ordinary Venezuelans are getting screwed as usual."

With the Trump administration talking up the prospects of international oil companies re-investing in Venezuela's corrupt and moribund petroleum infrastructure, Gunson says the reality may be more complicated.

"Nobody's going to come in here with the tens of billions of dollars that are required... to start the recovery process if the government is illegitimate and there's no rule of law," he says.

When the former Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez designated Maduro as his successor shortly before his death in 2013, the move was described as Chavez's "dedazo", a Spanish slang term meaning a "finger pointing", a personal anointment which bypasses the normal democratic process.

Ambassador Shapiro sees a parallel with the rise to power of Delcy Rodríguez.

"This is Trump's dedazo," he says.