Venezuela’s Vice President, Delcy Rodríguez, will be sworn in as acting president on Monday as ousted leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are set to appear before a court in New York following their arrest in a US military operation over the weekend.
Rodríguez, who served as Maduro’s vice-president and remains backed by Venezuela’s Supreme Court and the military, is expected to take the oath of office at 08:00 local time (01:00 GMT+1) in the capital Caracas.
Her inauguration comes after US air strikes in the Venezuelan capital on Saturday, which led to Maduro’s capture and transfer to the United States.
President Donald Trump has warned Rodríguez that she could “pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro” if she “doesn’t do what’s right”.
Speaking to The Atlantic on Monday, Trump said that for Venezuela, “regime change, anything you want to call it, is better than what you have right now. Can’t get any worse.”
Maduro, who has ruled Venezuela since 2013, is facing multiple federal charges in the United States.
On Saturday, US Attorney General Pam Bondi said the former Venezuelan leader had been charged with Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States.
His wife, Cilia Flores, is charged alongside him.
Bondi accused Maduro of running a violent, state-backed criminal enterprise and said both defendants would “face the full wrath of American justice on American soil, in American courts”.
The pair are currently being held at a federal detention centre in New York, where their initial court appearance could take place later on Monday.
Trump later described the charges as the culmination of what he called Maduro’s “campaign of deadly narco-terrorism” against the United States and its citizens.
He labelled the former Venezuelan leader an “illegitimate dictator” and said he had personally asked Maduro to surrender a week before the US strikes that led to his arrest.
Maduro has repeatedly denied being the leader of a drug cartel, accusing the U.S. of using its war on drugs as a pretext to remove him from power and seize control of Venezuela’s oil resources.
Despite Trump’s claims that the US will oversee Venezuela until “a safe and proper and judicious transition” can be achieved, Maduro’s allies remain firmly in control of key state institutions.
Trump has also said US oil companies would be allowed to move into Venezuela to repair infrastructure and begin extracting crude.
Rodríguez expressed willingness to work with the United States at her first cabinet meeting on Sunday.
“We invite the US government to collaborate with us on an agenda of co-operation orientated towards shared development within the framework of international law,” she said, adding that Venezuela’s people “deserve peace and dialogue, not war”.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has insisted the United States is not at war with Venezuela, despite the scale of the operation.
He described the action as a “law enforcement operation” targeting drug trafficking organisations rather than an invasion, and said congressional authorisation was not required because of the risk of leaks.
Rubio added that America does not recognise Venezuela’s current leadership as legitimate and would judge Rodríguez’s government by its actions. He said the US would retain “multiple levers of leverage”, including continued restrictions on Venezuela’s oil sector.
Maduro and Flores were captured during a special forces raid on their compound in the early hours of Saturday, which also involved strikes on military installations in the capital, Caracas.
Venezuela’s Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino said members of Maduro’s security team, along with soldiers and civilians, were killed. The U.S. officials say no American troops were harmed.
