Background and career
Nicolás Maduro Moros (born 23 November 1962) is a Venezuelan politician and former union leader who served as the 53rd president of Venezuela from 2013 until his capture in 2026 to face drug trafficking charges to which he pleaded not guilty. Originally elected democratically following the death of Hugo Chávez, he shifted toward authoritarian rule, with political analysts eventually classifying his government as a dictatorship in 2017. A member of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), he served as the vice president of Venezuela from 2012 to 2013 and as minister of foreign affairs from 2006 to 2012. Ideologically a Chavista, his developments to the ideology are called Madurismo. Initially a bus driver, Maduro rose to become a trade union leader before being elected to the National Assembly in 2000. 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, becoming the 53rd president of Venezuela. 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 (CNE) 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, though evidence showed that he lost the election by a wide margin. In 2026, he was seized in a U.S. military raid at his residence and transported to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges. Delcy Rodríguez assumed power as acting president, though both she and Maduro insist that he is still the de jure president. Maduro was accused of leading an authoritarian government, characterized by electoral fraud, human rights abuses, corruption, censorship and severe economic hardship. The United Nations (UN) and Human Rights Watch have alleged that under Maduro's administration, thousands of people died in extrajudicial killings and seven million Venezuelans fled the country due to economic collapse.
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 (MEP); 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 has 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 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.
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 Carlos Peñaloza Zambrano, during Maduro's time in Cuba he was instructed by Pedro Miret Prieto, a senior member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Cuba who was close to Fidel Castro.
According to Carlos Peñaloza Zambrano, 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.
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.
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.
