Nicolás Maduro
Nicolás Maduro Moros is a Venezuelan politician and former union leader who became the president of Venezuela in 2013. On 3 January 2026, US forces captured Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores; they were transported to the US and charged with drug trafficking to which they pleaded not guilty. Although he was de facto removed from power, according to the Venezuelan government and interim president Delcy Rodríguez, he is still the de jure president of Venezuela. Prior to his presidency, he served as the vice president of Venezuela under President Hugo Chávez from 2012 to 2013, and as minister of foreign affairs from 2006 to 2012.
Initially a bus driver, Maduro rose to become a trade union leader before being elected to the National Assembly in 2000. A member of the United Socialist Party, he was appointed to a number of positions under Chávez, serving as President of the National Assembly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and vice president under Chávez. Maduro assumed the presidency after Chávez's death and won the 2013 special presidential election. He ruled Venezuela by decree after 2015 through powers granted to him by the ruling party legislature.
Maduro's popularity declined following shortages in Venezuela and a drop in living standards which led to a wave of protests in 2014 that escalated into daily marches nationwide and repression of dissent. An opposition-led National Assembly was elected in 2015, but Maduro maintained power through the Supreme Tribunal, the National Electoral Council and the military. The Supreme Tribunal stripped the elected National Assembly of power and authority, resulting in a constitutional crisis and another wave of protests in 2017. In response to the protests, the Constituent Assembly of Venezuela was elected in 2017 under voting conditions that the opposition alleged were irregular. In 2018, Maduro was reelected and sworn in. The president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, was declared interim president by the opposition legislative body, starting a presidential crisis. In 2024, Maduro was reelected for a third term, although evidence indicates that he lost the election by a wide margin.
Maduro was widely considered to have been leading an authoritarian government, characterized by electoral fraud, human rights abuses, corruption, censorship and severe economic hardship. The United Nations and Human Rights Watch have alleged that under Maduro's administration thousands of people died in extrajudicial killings and seven million Venezuelans were forced to flee the country due to economic collapse. Maduro denied all allegations of misconduct and argued that the US had conspired against Venezuela to manufacture a crisis to enact regime change.
Early and personal life
Nicolás Maduro Moros was born on 23 November 1962 in Caracas, into a working-class family. His father, Nicolás Maduro García, was a prominent trade union leader and a "militant dreamer" of the Movimiento Electoral del Pueblo ; he died in a motor vehicle accident on 22 April 1989. His mother, Teresa de Jesús Moros, was born in Cúcuta, a Colombian city on the border with Venezuela. Maduro was raised in Calle 14, a street in Los Jardines, El Valle, a working-class neighborhood on the western outskirts of Caracas. The only male of four siblings, he had three sisters, María Teresa, Josefina, and Anita.Maduro was raised Catholic. In 2012, it was reported by The New York Times that he was a follower of Indian Hindu guru Sathya Sai Baba and previously visited the guru in India in 2005. In a 2013 interview, Maduro stated that his grandparents were Jewish, from a Sephardic Moorish background, and converted to Catholicism in Venezuela.
Maduro has been married twice. His first marriage was to Adriana Guerra Angulo, with whom he had his only son, Nicolás Maduro Guerra, also known as "Nicolasito", who was appointed to several senior government posts, Chief of the Presidency's Special Inspectors Body, head of the National Film School, and is a deputy to the National Assembly of Venezuela.
On 15 July 2013, he married Cilia Flores, a lawyer and politician who replaced Maduro as president of the National Assembly in August 2006, when he resigned to become Minister of Foreign Affairs, becoming the first woman to serve as president of the National Assembly. The two had been in a romantic relationship since the 1990s when Flores was Hugo Chávez's lawyer following the 1992 Venezuelan coup d'état attempts and were married months after Maduro became president.
While they have no children together, Maduro has three step-children from his wife's first marriage to Walter Ramón Gavidia: Walter Jacob, Yoswel, and Yosser.
Maduro is a fan of John Lennon's music and his political activism for peace and against war. Maduro has said that he was inspired by the music and counterculture of the 1960s and 70s, mentioning Robert Plant and Led Zeppelin.
Early career
Education and union work
Maduro attended the Liceo José Ávalos public high school in El Valle, where he was introduced to politics as a member of the school's student union. However, according to school records, Maduro did not graduate.For many years, Maduro worked as a bus driver for the Caracas Metro. He founded an unofficial trade union at the company, which had banned unions at that time. He was also employed as a bodyguard for José Vicente Rangel during Rangel's unsuccessful 1983 presidential campaign.
At the age of 24, Maduro was living in Havana after being sent by the Socialist League to attend a one-year course at the Escuela Nacional de Cuadros Julio Antonio Mella, a political training center directed by the Union of Young Communists. According to, during Maduro's time in Cuba he was instructed by, a senior member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Cuba who was close to Fidel Castro.
MBR–200
According to, Maduro was allegedly tasked by the Castro government to serve as a "mole" working for the Cuba's Dirección de Inteligencia to approach Hugo Chávez, who was experiencing a burgeoning military career.In the early 1990s, he joined MBR-200 and campaigned for the release of Chávez when he was jailed for his role in the 1992 Venezuelan coup d'état attempts. In the late 1990s, Maduro was instrumental in founding the Movement of the Fifth Republic, which supported Chávez in his run for president in 1998.
National Assembly
Maduro was elected on the MVR ticket to the Venezuelan Chamber of Deputies in 1998, to the National Constituent Assembly in 1999, and finally to the National Assembly in 2000, at all times representing the Capital District. He was elected as president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, a role he held from 2005 until 2006.Foreign affairs ministry (2006–2012)
Maduro was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2006, and served under Chávez in that position until being appointed Vice President of Venezuela in October 2012, after the presidential elections. According to BBC Mundo, during Maduro's tenure as foreign minister, "he was considered a key player in pushing the foreign policy of his country beyond Latin American borders to approach almost any government that rivaled the United States."Venezuela's foreign policy stances during his term included ending relations with Taiwan in favor of the People's Republic of China, support for Libya under Muammar Gaddafi, breaking off diplomatic ties with Israel during the 2008–09 Gaza War, recognizing and establishing diplomatic relations with the State of Palestine, a turnaround in relations with Colombia in 2008 and again in 2010, recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, and support for Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian Civil War.
Temir Porras, a 2019 visiting professor at Paris Institute of Political Studies who was Maduro's chief of staff during his tenure as foreign minister, said that in the early days of Chavismo, Maduro was considered "pragmatic" and a "very skilled politician" who was "good at negotiating and bargaining". According to Rory Carroll, Maduro did not speak any foreign languages while serving as the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
2006 detention in New York
In New York City in September 2006, while attempting to travel back to Venezuela via Miami, Maduro was briefly detained by United States Department of Homeland Security officers at the John F. Kennedy International Airport for around 90 minutes, after paying for three airline tickets in cash. Both Maduro and President Hugo Chávez were in New York City attending the 61st session of the UN General Assembly, where President Chávez called U.S. President George W. Bush "the devil" during his speech.The incident began when Maduro tried to pick up an item that had been screened at a security checkpoint at the airport, and security personnel told Maduro that he was prohibited from doing so. Maduro later identified himself as a diplomat from the Venezuelan government, but officials still escorted him to a room to conduct secondary screening. At one point, authorities ordered Maduro and other Venezuelan officials to spread their arms and legs and be frisked, but Maduro and others forcefully refused. His diplomatic passport and ticket were retained for a time but eventually returned.
Speaking at the Venezuelan mission to the UN after his release, Maduro said his detention by the US authorities was illegal and he filed a complaint at the United Nations. US and UN officials called the incident "regrettable" but said Maduro had been identified for "secondary screening". Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke claimed that Maduro was not mistreated, saying that there was no evidence of abnormalities during the screening process. Maduro said the incident prevented him from traveling home on the same day.
When he was informed of the incident, President Chávez said Maduro's detention was retaliation for his own speech at the UN General Assembly and stated that the authorities detained Maduro over his links to the Venezuelan failed coup in 1992, a charge that President Chávez denied.