After Maduro, Venezuela power vacuum exposes brutal insiders and enforcers

As Venezuela enters the post-Nicolas Maduro era, erstwhile officials and determination experts pass the state whitethorn beryllium facing not a antiauthoritarian transition, but a play of deeper instability and interior struggle betwixt imaginable successors that immoderate pass could beryllium adjacent worse than Maduro.

Marshall Billingslea, the erstwhile adjunct caput for violent financing and fiscal crimes successful the U.S. Treasury Department, said Maduro’s removal has exposed a fractured strategy that was ne'er held unneurotic by a azygous strongman, but by competing transgression powerfulness centers present moving independently.

"The cartel has ever been a escaped association, with each of the mafia bosses having their ain centers of gravity," Billingslea said. "Maduro was the frontman, but helium didn’t workout full control. Now we’re seeing each of those centers spinning disconnected connected their own."

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U.S. State Department "wanted" posters amusement Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López (left) and elder authorities fig Diosdado Cabello, some accused by U.S. authorities of corruption and links to cause trafficking networks. (U.S. State Department )

Billingslea said the seizure of Cilia Flores, Maduro’s wife, was arsenic consequential arsenic Maduro’s removal itself.

"The seizure of Cilia Flores is simply a peculiarly large woody due to the fact that she was the brains down the cognition and the 1 who cleared retired imaginable rivals," helium said. "Her removal is arsenic significant."

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Billingslea outlined what helium described arsenic 5 competing powerfulness centers, 4 wrong the authorities and 1 extracurricular it. "The removal of Maduro, and peculiarly the removal of Cilia Flores, leaves a immense powerfulness vacuum successful the cartel," helium said. "We haven’t yet reached a caller equilibrium here."

In the interim, helium foresees a precocious hazard of interior powerfulness struggles, unit and further repression arsenic rival factions maneuver to unafraid power successful a post-Maduro Venezuela. But helium notes that the Trump medication anticipates this and is executing a clear-eyed strategy to archetypal unafraid U.S. halfway interests, followed by the gradual restoration of democracy, each without needing American "boots connected the ground."

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Delcy Rodríguez takes over, but powerfulness remains contested

Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s longtime vice president, was rapidly installed arsenic interim leader. But her emergence has done small to reassure Venezuelans oregon planetary observers that meaningful alteration is coming.

Rodríguez is profoundly embedded successful the Maduro strategy and has agelong played a cardinal relation successful overseeing Venezuela’s interior quality and information apparatus. According to determination reporting, her absorption since taking bureau has been consolidating power wrong those institutions alternatively than signaling governmental reform.

Former U.S. and determination officials accidental Delcy Rodríguez’s emergence has revived long-standing questions astir who genuinely influences her decisions arsenic she moves to consolidate power.

Venezuela's Vice President Delcy Rodriguez addresses the media successful Caracas, Venezuela, connected March 10, 2025.  (Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Reuters)

Those officials constituent to Rodríguez’s heavy ties with Cuban intelligence, which helped physique and run Venezuela’s interior information and surveillance apparatus implicit the past 2 decades. Cuban operatives played a cardinal relation successful shaping however the authorities monitored dissent and protected elder leadership, embedding themselves wrong Venezuela’s quality services.

At the aforesaid time, erstwhile officials accidental Rodríguez appears to beryllium investigating practice with Washington, creating uncertainty implicit however overmuch leverage the United States really holds. Some presumption her constricted engagement with U.S. demands arsenic tactical, aimed astatine buying clip portion she works to unafraid loyalty wrong the authorities and neutralize rival factions.

A erstwhile Venezuelan authoritative antecedently told Fox News Digital that Rodríguez "hates the West" and represents continuity with the Maduro regime, not a interruption from it.

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A U.S. State Department "wanted" poster for elder Venezuelan authorities fig Diosdado Cabello Rondon, whom U.S. authorities person accused of ties to narcotics trafficking and narco-terrorism (U.S. State Department )

Cabello mobilizes loyalists

Diosdado Cabello, 1 of the astir feared figures successful the country, has emerged arsenic a cardinal subordinate successful the post-Maduro scramble for control.

Cabello, who wields power implicit the ruling enactment and interior security, has been rallying equipped colectivos and loyalist groups. Those groups person been progressive successful the streets, detaining opponents and reinforcing authorities authorization done intimidation.

Sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury for corruption and alleged ties to drug-trafficking networks, Cabello is wide viewed arsenic a fig susceptible of consolidating powerfulness done unit alternatively than institutions.

Jorge Rodríguez holds the levers of control

Jorge Rodríguez, president of the National Assembly and member of Delcy Rodríguez, remains 1 of the regime’s astir important governmental operators.

Rodríguez has served arsenic a cardinal strategist for Maduro, overseeing communications, elections and interior coordination. Recent reporting indicates helium continues to enactment intimately with his sister to support power implicit quality and information structures, reinforcing the regime’s grip contempt Maduro’s removal.

Experts accidental Rodríguez could play a cardinal relation successful shaping immoderate managed modulation that preserves the strategy Maduro built.

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U.S. State Department "wanted" posters amusement Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López accused by U.S. authorities of conspiracy to administer cocaine connected committee an craft registered successful the U.S.

Padrino López

Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, agelong considered the backbone of Maduro’s survival, remains a captious fig arsenic well.

While Padrino López has not publically positioned himself arsenic a successor, analysts enactment that the equipped forces are nary longer unified down a azygous leader. Senior generals are divided crossed competing factions, raising the hazard of interior clashes oregon a displacement toward overt subject regularisation if civilian authorization weakens further.

Beyond the powerfulness conflict among authorities elites, Venezuela faces a broader danger.

Large parts of the state are already influenced by transgression syndicates and equipped groups. As centralized authorization weakens, those actors could exploit the vacuum, expanding power implicit territory and smuggling routes.

Experts warned that an uncontrolled illness could unleash forces much convulsive and little predictable than Maduro’s centralized repression, and the events unfolding present suggest that hazard is growing.

Venezuelan absorption person Maria Corina Machado waves a nationalist emblem during a protestation called by the absorption connected the eve of the statesmanlike inauguration, successful Caracas connected Jan. 9, 2025. (Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images)

Outside the regime, absorption person María Corina Machado remains the astir fashionable governmental fig among Venezuelan voters. But popularity unsocial whitethorn not beryllium capable to construe into power.

Machado lacks power implicit information forces, quality agencies oregon equipped groups. As repression intensifies and rival factions maneuver, her quality to person nationalist enactment into governmental authorization remains uncertain.

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Police patrol successful La Guaira, Venezuela, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, aft U.S. President Donald Trump announced that President Nicolás Maduro had been captured and flown retired of the country. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

Maduro’s fall, analysts say, did not dismantle Venezuela’s powerfulness structure. It fractured it.

With equipped loyalists successful the streets, rival factions competing down the scenes, and an interim person struggling to asseverate authority, Venezuela present faces a unsafe play successful which the aftermath of Maduro’s regularisation could beryllium much chaotic — and perchance much brutal — than what came before, experts say. For Venezuelans, the question is nary longer whether Maduro is gone, but whether thing that replaces him volition beryllium better.