Delcy Rodríguez


Delcy Eloína Rodríguez Gómez is a Venezuelan politician who has been Vice President of Venezuela since 14 June 2018, with her constitutional position under dispute since 2019. She was also Minister of Popular Power for Communication and Information of Venezuela from 2013 to 2014, Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2014 to 2017 and President of the Constituent Assembly of Venezuela from 4 August 2017 to 14 June 2018. She is the target of multiple international sanctions.

Biography

Rodríguez is the daughter of —who was the founder of the Socialist League—and Delcy Gómez. She has a brother, Jorge Jesús Rodríguez, who served as Mayor of Caracas, and also served as vice president.

Political career

She held several posts during the course of the Chavez administration: as International Affairs Director in the Ministry of Energy and Mines, in 2003; as Vice-minister for European Affairs in 2005; serving from February–August 2006 as the Minister for Presidential Affairs and the following year as General Coordinator to the Vice-President of Venezuela, both of which roles she held while her brother occupied the office of Vice President of the Republic. She was the Minister for Presidential Affairs in 2006. Similarly, she was Vice Minister for Europe at the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Relations. She also served as the General Coordinator to the Vice President of Venezuela. According to a profile published in the daily Tal Cual, Rodriguez pursued a concentration in labor law in Paris, France, taught at UCV and was a member of the Venezuelan Association of Labor Lawyers.
Since 2016, Rodriguez has been an outspoken defender of Venezuelan government domestic actions in the face of calls from Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the Organization of American States, to suspend Venezuelan membership in the organization for violating the OAS Democratic Charter. On 21 June 2017, Rodriguez left her post to run for the Constituent National Assembly. President Maduro accepted her resignation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She was succeeded by Samuel Moncada.

Vice President of Venezuela

On 14 June 2018, President Maduro named Rodríguez to be Vice President of Venezuela, succeeding Tareck El Aissami. She also became the head official of the Bolivarian Intelligence Service, Venezuela's intelligence agency, as it is dependent on the office of the vice presidency.

Sanctions

Rodríguez has been sanctioned by several countries and is banned from entering neighboring Colombia. The Colombian government maintains a list of people banned from entering Colombia or subject to expulsion; as of January 2019, the list had 200 people with a "close relationship and support for the Nicolás Maduro regime".
On 22 September 2017, Canada sanctioned Rodríguez due to rupture of Venezuela's constitutional order.
Shortly after being named Vice President of Venezuela, Rodríguez was one of eleven officials sanctioned by the European Union on 25 June 2018, with her assets frozen and a travel ban issued against her after she "undermined democracy and the rule of law in Venezuela".
The Mexican Senate froze the assets of officials of the Maduro administration, including Delcy Rodríguez, and prohibited them from entering Mexico on 20 April 2018.
Switzerland sanctioned Rodríguez on 10 July 2018, freezing her assets and imposing a travel ban while citing the same reasons of the European Union.
The United States sanctioned Rodríguez on 25 September 2018 for "corruption and humanitarian issues".

Meeting in Spain

In January 2020, despite the entry ban imposed by the European Union since 2018, Rodríguez met in the guest area of the Madrid–Barajas Airport with Spain's minister José Luis Ábalos from the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party.

Personal life

Rodríguez was in a relationship with Smartmatic co-founder Alfredo José Anzola Jaumotte prior to his death in April 2008.