The president appoints as the new head of the Honor Guard and of military counterintelligence, a former director of Sebin
EFE (via 14ymedio), Caracas, 7 January 2026 — Three days after the U.S. military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, Chavismo has closed ranks around Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, who said that “no external agent” governs the country.
Rodríguez, who was sworn in pursuant to an order from the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, faces the dilemma of keeping Chavismo united in its defiant stance toward Washington, while Donald Trump has demanded that she comply with his demands, under the threat that she will pay a price “higher than Maduro’s.”
“We are here governing alongside the people; the Government of Venezuela governs our country, no one else. There is no external agent governing Venezuela,” the official said Tuesday at an official event, where she said she has “grown spiritually to face the challenges, the aggressions, the threats.”
“On a personal level,” she added without elaborating, “to those who threaten me, I say this: my destiny is decided by no one but God. That is my answer.”
One of her first decisions was to appoint General Gustavo González López as commander of the Presidential Honor Guard and head of the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM).
The appointment was announced in a Telegram message by Communications Minister Freddy Ñáñez, who said that González López replaces Major General Javier Marcano Tábata as head of the Honor Guard.
In this regard, he stated that Rodríguez “expressed her recognition” to the officer for “the dedication and loyalty demonstrated during the exercise of his duties.”
Likewise, the minister said, the acting president reaffirmed her confidence in the “career and vocation for service” of González López, who served as minister of the Interior and Justice between 2015 and 2016, and as director of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin) between April 2019 and October 2024.
“These appointments are part of a dynamic of strengthening and institutional continuity, aimed at guaranteeing peace, the security of the people, and the full force of the Constitution of the Republic,” Ñáñez added.
“These appointments are part of a dynamic of strengthening and institutional continuity, aimed at guaranteeing peace, the security of the people, and the full force of the Constitution of the Republic”
Since the Supreme Court’s decision to entrust the Executive Branch to the then executive vice president, the Chavista leadership has shown unity and rallied around the now acting president, who was sworn in before her brother, Jorge Rodríguez, the speaker of the Parliament.
The ceremony took place one day after the military high command, led by Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, backed the high court’s decision and guaranteed the country’s governability.
On Tuesday, it was the turn of thousands of Chavista women who marched in Caracas in support of the acting president, while also joining the campaign to demand the release of Maduro and Flores.
“We tell our acting president that she is not alone; here she has an army of women who will accompany her in continuing to work so that our people feel cared for,” said Caracas Mayor Carmen Meléndez, who led the demonstration alongside the minister of the Interior and number two figure of Chavismo, Diosdado Cabello.
And it is that, after twelve years of Maduro’s government, the sudden capture of the president opens a new chapter of uncertainty about the future of the Bolivarian revolution, which has now been in power for 26 years.
Rodríguez, one of the best-known faces of Chavismo, has led key institutions, such as the ministries of Communication and Information, Foreign Affairs, Finance, and until recently, Hydrocarbons.
However, she has not been a popular leader nor held elected office, with the exception of serving as a deputy as part of the National Constituent Assembly, a body installed in 2017 after elections in which only Chavismo participated and whose disaggregated results were never made public.
Along with her brother, she has been sanctioned since 2018 by the U.S. Treasury Department, which accuses her of helping Maduro “maintain power and consolidate his authoritarian government,” as well as by the European Union.
Now, with no clear horizon as to how long her acting status will last, Rodríguez’s greatest challenge is to keep at bay a Trump administration determined to control Venezuela.
Now, with no clear horizon as to how long her acting status will last, Rodríguez’s greatest challenge is to keep at bay a Trump administration determined to control Venezuela
“What we need (from Delcy Rodríguez) is total access—total access to oil and other things in the country that allow us to rebuild it,” the Republican leader said, adding that new attacks are not ruled out. “If they don’t behave, we’ll launch a second attack,” the president warned on Sunday, one day after the surprise bombardment he ordered over areas of Caracas and three neighboring states.
In her first statement as acting president, Rodríguez extended an invitation to the United States to work on a joint “agenda of cooperation.” But this gesture has alternated with defiant speeches and messages from the acting president herself, as well as from other Chavista leaders, who insist they will seek the release of Maduro and Flores so that they can return to Venezuela.
During her swearing-in, Rodríguez described Maduro and Flores as “hostages” of the United States.
As one of her first acts after taking office, she visited the tomb of the late Hugo Chávez at the Cuartel de la Montaña, that of former Chavista minister Aristóbulo Istúriz, and that of her father, leftist leader Jorge Antonio Rodríguez, who was killed in 1973 during an interrogation over the kidnapping of a U.S. citizen in which he was implicated.
Rodríguez thus begins a new phase of the “revolution,” marked by the tension between the symbolic weight of Chávez’s legacy and the threat posed by an administration that maintains the largest air and naval deployment in the Caribbean and that carried out an unprecedented attack on Venezuelan soil.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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