Venezuela’s Supreme Court has ordered Vice President Delcy Rodríguez to assume the powers and duties of acting president following the removal of Nicolás Maduro by the United States, according to a ruling announced late Saturday.
Reading the decision during a session broadcast on state television channel VTV, Justice Tania D’Amelio said the court concluded Maduro was in a “material and temporary impossibility to exercise his functions.” Under the order, Rodríguez will “assume and exercise, as acting president, all the powers, duties and faculties inherent to the office of president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,” citing the need to guarantee administrative continuity and the nation’s defence. Venezuela’s constitution stipulates that the vice president replaces the president in cases of temporary or absolute absence.
The ruling followed reports that US forces bombed Caracas and abducted Maduro and his wife, developments that initially energised Venezuela’s fractured opposition. “Venezuelans, the hour of freedom has arrived,” said María Corina Machado, leader of the opposition movement and recipient of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.
Machado urged the immediate installation of Edmundo González Urrutia as president and called on the military to back him. Most Western governments consider González the legitimate winner of Venezuela’s disputed 2024 presidential election.
Opposition momentum appeared to falter after US President Donald Trump publicly questioned Machado’s standing and suggested he would instead work with Rodríguez, a longtime Maduro ally. Asked whether Machado would play a role in a post-Maduro government, Trump said he had not spoken with her and claimed she lacked sufficient support or respect within the country.
Source: CNN