Delcy Rodriguez

Biography

Delcy Eloína Rodríguez Gómez was born in Caracas in 1969, the daughter of the leftist leader Jorge Antonio Rodríguez, who died in the custody of the DISIP intelligence police in 1976. She graduated in law from the Central University of Venezuela in 1993, where she was a student leader, later studied labour law in Paris without graduating, and taught at the university.

She entered politics during the 2002 coup attempt against Hugo Chávez and held posts in the vice presidency and the energy ministry and as vice-minister for Europe before serving briefly as minister for presidential affairs in 2006. Under Nicolás Maduro she was minister of communication from 2013 and in December 2014 became Venezuela's first female foreign minister, clashing with Mercosur and the Organization of American States.

In 2017 she was elected to the Constituent National Assembly and chosen as its president. Maduro made her vice president in June 2018, and she also ran the finance ministry from 2020 and the oil ministry from 2024, earning a reputation as a technocrat. She has been under EU sanctions since 2017, and a 2020 stopover in Madrid became a scandal in Spain.

After US forces captured Maduro on 3 January 2026, the Supreme Tribunal of Justice ordered her to act as president, and she was sworn in on 5 January, the first woman to exercise the office. Her interim government has worked under heavy US influence, passed an amnesty law and released political prisoners.