This post offers some background on the last heads of chavismo in Venezuela, starting with Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores, both now out of the picture of political change in Venezuela, but still relevant to understand what has been happening here for the past 26 years, and especially since 2013. Keep in mind that all of these individuals only have power because they stood with Chávez throughout his government, they're not loved or even respected within the regime's ranks, let alone by the general population.
Nicolás Maduro
Formerly the 34th President of Venezuela after Chávez's death, he used to be a student leader, then he worked for the Caracas Subway system as a bus and train driver. He was sent several times to Cuba to be trained as a political operative, and when Chávez came to power in 1998, he and his wife Cilia Flores were right next to him. He was a lawmaker at the National Assembly, then Speaker of the same body and then was appointed Foreign Minister and Vice-President, the latter title being the one he held when Chávez died, one of the reasons why he became President.
During the coup d'état on April 11th, 2002, he was one of the infamous shooters who fired on demonstrators from the cover of a bridge near the Government Palace, and was a major participant in all of chavismo's illegal activities, from drug trafficking to embezzlement. He's also responsible for the kidnapping and imprisonment of dissidents and political opponents of chavismo, torture and sanctioned killings. By the time of his abduction by U.S. forces on Jan. 3rd, he had zero political capital, no legitimacy and evidently after what happened last week, no real support within the regime.
Cilia Flores
Flores is also one of the earliest members of the regime and used to be Chávez's lawyer. She was one of the lawmakers who rewrote the Constitution of Venezuela in the National Constituent Assembly of 1999. She's been Attorney General, Comptroller General, lawmaker and Speaker of the National Assembly, and finally, First Lady of Venezuela. In all of those, positions she labored to increase her personal range of influence and is just as responsible as her husband for the destruction of the Venezuelan State. She's also involved in drug trafficking and other national and international crimes. Her nephew Efraín Campo Flores and her godson Francisco Flores de Freitas were caught while trying to smuggle drugs into the U.S., one of the first major public incidents connecting her and other members of the regime with the drug trafficking business. Before her abduction on Jan. 3rd, she was arguably the most powerful woman in Venezuela.
Jorge and Delcy Rodríguez
The Rodríguez siblings are also part of chavismo's old guard, although Delcy only gained prominence after Chávez's death, because the autocrat reportedly mistrusted her (fancy that). Jorge is a psychiatrist and the mastermind behind the regime's propaganda apparatus. His first role was as chief of the National Electoral Council, but he's also been Vice-President, Mayor of Caracas, Minister of Communications, lawmaker and Speaker of the National Assembly. His specialty has been manipulating elections and sowing division in public opinion through censorship, persecution and vast proselytist campaigns. His sister began as Chief of Staff for Chávez in 2006, but only lasted for a few months, no doubt because of Chávez's mistrust, and she didn't hold public office again until Maduro came to power. She's "served" as Foreign Minister, Minister of Communications, Minister of Economy, Minister of Oil, Vice-President and now, Acting President of Venezuela. Jorge and Delcy are also drug traffickers, and they've dealt for years with the gold and minerals of the country as well.
These two are kind of the emotional force behind the regime's actions. Their father, Jorge Antonio Rodríguez, was killed by the DISIP (The government's secret police, now extinct and replaced by SEBIN) in 1976, when they were still children. Due to this incident, even though all members of the regime are bad juju, Jorge and Delcy could be said to embody the motive of revenge that drives chavismo's worst expressions.
Diosdado Cabello
Cabello's the oldest member of Chávez's inner circle, and doubtlessly the worst and most dangerous criminal in the regime. A member of the military uprising on Feb. 4th, 1992, led by Chávez, he was imprisoned, but then pardoned and released in 1994. He was also a sitting member of the National Constitutional Assembly that rewrote the Constitution in 1999. In the first years of the chavista regime, he was Chávez's Chief of Staff, first Vice-President and, for a few hours, first Acting President during the coup. Over the years he was also appointed chief of CONATEL (the National Communications Bureau), Governor of Miranda State, Minister of Public Works, National Assembly lawmaker and Speaker, and Minister of the Interior, his current position, where he has (nominally, at least) the control of all police and security forces, and all informal armed groups aligned with the regime. He also has influence in all other sectors of the regime, due to his seniority and ruthlessness.
Cabello is reportedly the leader of the Cartel de los Soles, a drug-trafficking organization involving all of the top brass of the Venezuelan Armed Forces, as well as several other military and civilian officials, foreign terrorist organizations such as Hezbolah and the Colombian ELN (National Liberation Army) and FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), and ganglords in prisons and slums across the country. While all of the members of the regime, present and past, have a degree of responsibility in the ruin of Venezuela, this guy's really the worst, personally guilty of all sorts of human rights abuses and unspeakable atrocities.
Vladimir Padrino López
Now one of the most critical figures within the regime, Padrino López was merely a teacher at military institutions and a loyal chavista soldier for all of Chávez's time in office, but then rose to prominence in 2014 as Maduro's Defense Minister, a post that he's kept since, due to his invaluable control over the Armed Forces, which has prevented many uprisings over the years. Aside from being a member of the Cartel de los Soles, he's responsible for the brutal repression against protesters both in 2014 and in the 2016-2019 period. Less is known about this man than about any other current leader of the regime, so the extent of his corruption and involvement in other crimes are harder to assess.
These five people are what remains of a once much larger power structure that has diminished rapidly since 2019. There are, of course, lesser players who can be addressed as they become more relevant personally, if at all. Forget ideology, these people aren't "leftists" or "socialists" or "communists"; they're gangsters, their philosophy is money, their political view is power, and they're exceedingly wealthy due to what they've pilfered from Venezuela's coffers, and all the shell companies and figureheads that they've used to handle their shady affairs with other governments and enterprises. In addition to the aforementioned crimes, they made a killing, literally and figuratively, from the hunger of Venezuelans through their food handout plan, imported straight from the Cuban playbook; and if you want to get your hands really dirty, research what happened with Odebrecht, a Brazilian construction firm that bribed many Venezuelan officials to obtain several infrastructure projects in Venezuela, but never finished most of them, and the money just vanished... into the pockets of these bullies and their extensive criminal organization.
They're sadistic, cruel, entirely unconcerned with the people's needs, and this, too, turns to their disadvantage now, because they're all for themselves and nobody else, they don't trust each other, cooperate very little, and Cabello in particular hates and is hated by all of the others. While Maduro and Flores were around, they kept a fragile balance between these actors, but with them gone and the Rodríguez pretty much negotiating directly with, or rather bending over to, the U.S., while Diosdado continues to appear defiant and Padrino is conspicuously out of sight, there's no telling what horrible environment dominates chavismo's innards right now, but one safe bet is that they're in chaos and losing grasp by the hour, as some of them frantically try to keep Trump satisfied, attempt to contain panic and insurrection in their ranks while safeguarding their already beleaguered fortunes, and also scramble to anticipate and escape a deadly attack from one of their own.
Two are already out, four more to go, and then comes the real work: tackling the massive structure of criminals that they established and nurtured for over two decades, infecting police departments, the military and every other institution. Another system, helmed by different people, is the only way of ever accomplishing that, and we've exhausted all of the democratic and non-violent options, I kid you not.
BTW, if we consider that Trump is also a criminal almost at the same level as these guys (the only difference being that they've been in control of a country for far longer), we're not witnessing a fight for democracy or justice, but a gang war, and many nations, companies and institutions are in on it. There isn't a single government in this world that isn't headed by gangsters, we're surrounded by mafias whether we accept it or not, and we can do very little about that circumstance, but we can inform ourselves, have honest discussions about these topics, dropping the ideological fallacies and the pride, and observing the world that we live in with attention.