Venezuela’s Supreme Court has directed Vice-President, Delcy Rodríguez to assume office as the country’s interim president following the seizure of President Nicolas Maduro by the United States.
In its ruling late Saturday, the court directed Rodríguez to “assume and exercise, in an acting capacity, all the attributes, duties and powers inherent to the office of President to guarantee administrative continuity and the comprehensive defence of the nation.”
The judgment stated that Rodríguez would take over “the office of President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in order to guarantee administrative continuity and the comprehensive defense of the Nation.”
The court added that it would continue deliberations to “determine the applicable legal framework to guarantee the continuity of the State, the administration of government, and the defense of sovereignty in the face of the forced absence of the President of the Republic.”
Earlier on Saturday, US President Donald Trump said Washington would temporarily oversee Venezuela until a leadership transition could be organised.
“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said at a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. “So we don’t want to be involved with having somebody else get in, and we have the same situation that we had for the last long period of years.”
Trump offered few details on how the United States would “run” Venezuela, despite the continued presence of the country’s vice-president, legislature and military, all of which have publicly opposed the US action.
He said the plan would involve deploying major US oil companies to repair Venezuela’s oil infrastructure, while noting that the American embargo on Venezuelan oil “remains in full effect” and that US forces would stay on alert.
“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” Trump said.
According to a source familiar with the matter, a plane carrying Maduro landed shortly before 5pm local time at Stewart International Airport in New York, from where he was expected to be transported to New York City.
Trump said the intervention would be carried out “with a group” largely made up of senior US officials, with a focus on repairing oil facilities and ensuring that the Venezuelan people were “also taken care of.”
AFP