Venezuela’s Supreme Court appoints Delcy Rodríguez as interim president

The Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) of Venezuela determined this Saturday (4) that the executive vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, assume the interim Presidency of the Republic, due to the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro.

When announcing the decision, the president of the Constitutional Chamber of the TSJ, Tania D’Amelio Cardiet, stated that Maduro’s forced absence, as a result of his kidnapping, constitutes a situation of “material and temporary impossibility” for the exercise of presidential functions, requiring an immediate institutional response to guarantee the administrative continuity of the State.

The TSJ’s determination comes one day after Delcy Rodríguez reaffirmed, during a meeting of the Nation’s Defense Council, her loyalty to President Nicolás Maduro and declared that he remains “the only constitutional president of Venezuela”.

In the decision, the court established that Rodríguez exercises, on an interim basis, all the powers, duties and powers inherent to the position of President of the Republic, with the objective of ensuring the functioning of State institutions in the face of the forced absence of the head of State.

According to the reading made by the Constitutional Chamber, the kidnapping of the president constitutes an exceptional and force majeure situation, not literally foreseen in the Constitution, which required the adoption of an urgent measure to avoid a power vacuum.

The measure comes after the United States military offensive against Venezuela, carried out in the early hours of Saturday (3), which culminated in the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro and led the Venezuelan government to denounce the episode as a violation of national sovereignty and international law.

Delcy Rodríguez is a lawyer and, since 2018, has held the position of vice president of the country. Previously, she held the positions of Minister of Economy and Minister of Communication and Information. She is the sister of Jorge Antonio Rodríguez, current leader of the National Assembly.

The two are sons of Jorge Antonio Rodríguez, one of the founders of the Socialist League of Venezuela in the 1960s, a movement of which they were also part.