Venezuelan parliament swears in interim president as Maduro’s replacement

Venezuela’s parliament on Monday swore in Delcy Rodríguez as interim president.

Rodríguez, 56, stepped into the void left by the capture of her predecessor, Nicolás Maduro, by United States special forces, a move which thrust the oil-rich nation into a new era of uncertainty and fragile diplomacy.

The lawyer and longtime Maduro ally, who has served as vice president since 2018, took the oath in a subdued ceremony at the National Assembly.

The oath was administered by her brother and National Assembly Speaker, Jorge Rodríguez.

This is just as the assembly denounced US action that led to Maduro’s capture to face drug charges in New York alongside his wife, Cilia Flores.

“I come with sorrow for the suffering inflicted upon the Venezuelan people following an illegitimate military aggression against our homeland,” Rodríguez told lawmakers, her voice steady but laced with emotion as she referred to Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, as “two heroes” kidnapped by foreign forces.

She condemned the US operation as “an atrocity that violates international law,” insisting Maduro remains Venezuela’s rightful leader.

In an address to colleagues, senior lawmaker Fernando Soto Rojas slammed US President Donald Trump.

He said, “The president of the United States, Mr Trump, claims to be the prosecutor, the judge, and the policeman of the world.

“We say: you will not succeed. And we will ultimately deploy all our solidarity so that our legitimate president, Nicolas Maduro, returns victorious to Miraflores.”

The swearing-in capped a whirlwind weekend that began on January 3, when US special forces raided the Miraflores Palace in a daring nighttime operation, seizing Maduro and Flores to face long-standing drug trafficking charges in New York.

Maduro, appearing in a US federal court, pleaded not guilty, his defiant stance a far cry from the power he wielded for over a decade.

On Saturday, Venezuela’s Supreme Court ordered Delcy Rodriguez to assume the presidency “in an acting capacity,” and on Sunday, the military also threw its support behind her.