Nicolas Maduro, 63, saved an iron grip on energy for over a decade in Venezuela.
It ended abruptly on Saturday, January 3, when United States forces kidnapped him and his spouse, First Woman Cilia Flores, eradicating them from the nation.
The 2 are ostensibly to be tried in a US court docket on drug- and weapons-related costs.
Who’s Maduro? How did he come to guide Venezuela? And the way did he find yourself kidnapped by the US? Right here’s what we all know.
Maduro’s formative years
Maduro was born in a working-class household on November 23, 1962, within the El Valle neighbourhood of Caracas.
His mother and father are Nicolas Maduro Garcia, a commerce union chief, and Teresa de Jesus Moros, who additionally had three daughters collectively: Maria Teresa, Josefina, and Anita Maduro.
Maduro was raised beneath the numerous affect of his father’s politics.
Maduro as soon as shared that his grandparents had been of Sephardic Jewish descent, and transformed to Catholicism upon arriving in Venezuela.
Rising up, Maduro was a fan of Western rock music and infrequently quoted artists together with John Lennon.
He attended a public highschool, the Liceo Jose Avalos, in El Valle, the place he was concerned in scholar politics and reportedly served as the scholar union president; nonetheless, there are not any information that present he graduated.
Rise to energy
Maduro’s political rise started in organised labour.
He’s believed to have joined the Socialist League of Venezuela, a Marxist-Leninist celebration, within the early Nineteen Eighties.
On the age of 24, in 1986, Maduro was despatched as a consultant of the Socialist League to Cuba for a yr of political coaching at the Escuela Nacional de Cuadros Julio Antonio Mella, run by the Union of Younger Communists (UJC).
Upon his return, he began working as a bus driver in Caracas metropolis’s metro system, after which based and led the SITRAMECA, or Sindicato de Trabajadores y Trabajadoras del Metro de Caracas, in 1991.
Maduro turned energetic within the transport staff’ union through the late Nineteen Eighties and early Nineteen Nineties, and based one of many firm’s first casual labour syndicates, steadily getting into the facility centres via union politics.
A 2006 cable from the US Embassy in Caracas, made public by WikiLeaks, famous that Maduro was on the nationwide committee of the Socialist League and he “reportedly turned down a baseball contract from a U.S. Main League Baseball scout.”
He was moved by the management of Hugo Chavez, a Venezuelan lieutenant colonel who led the armed Bolivarian motion rebelling towards the so-called “Puntofijismo” system, Venezuela’s two-party democracy system, and the sitting President Carlos Andres Perez, citing corruption.
Within the early Nineteen Nineties, Maduro joined MBR-200, the civilian wing of the motion, and later continued to marketing campaign for Chavez’s launch after he was jailed for the failed 1992 coup.
Maduro met his future spouse, Cilia Flores, when she headed the authorized group that received freedom for Chavez in 1994.
After Chavez was pardoned and launched, Maduro joined the Motion of the Fifth Republic, a socialist political celebration, in 1997 to run within the 1998 elections. Maduro was elected to the Nationwide Constituent Meeting whereas Chavez received the presidency.
Maduro was near Chavez through the drafting of a brand new structure in 1999, and after six years in workplace, he was designated the minister of overseas affairs. In October 2012, Maduro turned vice chairman of Venezuela amid the quickly deteriorating well being of Chavez.
Consolidation of energy in Caracas
In December 2012, because the charismatic Chavez fell ailing and was flying to Cuba for most cancers remedy, he anointed Maduro, then the vice chairman, as his political successor in a televised handle.
In elections after Chavez’s loss of life, Maduro received by a slim margin in April 2013.
He started his presidency by expelling US diplomats, calling them “historic enemies” and accusing them of poisoning Chavez. He labelled the home opposition “fascists” working to “divide the nation”.
The primary woman went on to carry a number of high-ranking positions, together with lawyer normal and chief of parliament.
Maduro inherited agency management over key establishments that Chavez had already reshaped, together with the navy management, the Supreme Courtroom, and state media.
However the former union chief didn’t have his mentor’s charisma, and needed to cope with a collapsing financial system and an opposition, together with Maria Corina Machado, who later received the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, that referred to as for protests throughout the nation. Maduro cracked down on them, killing a minimum of 43 protestors.
Dealing with rising opposition strain and plummeting recognition, Maduro established a pro-government constituent meeting in 2017 to neutralise the legislature, now managed by the opposition. One other spherical of protests and additional crackdown adopted, with Venezuelan forces killing greater than 100 folks.
All of the whereas, the financial system tanked, with Venezuela’s almost 30 million inhabitants dealing with shortages of necessities, and oil manufacturing dropping to margins.
Within the subsequent election in 2018, Maduro was declared the winner unopposed, however 45 nations, together with the US, didn’t recognise him, and he jailed some opposition leaders and compelled others into exile.
In 2024, Maduro was once more chosen the winner within the presidential election, broadly seen as non-transparent, with the election council failing to indicate the tally sheets. Extra mass protests adopted, met with a harsh crackdown.
Why did Trump resolve he wanted to take away Maduro?
After US President Trump returned to workplace for a second time period in January final yr, he upped the ante towards the Venezuelan chief.
The Trump administration imposed a 25 % tariff on Caracas, doubled the bounty on Maduro, and imposed sanctions on his members of the family.
Since September, US forces have performed strikes on vessels off the Venezuelan coast, which the White Home alleges had been concerned in “narco-terrorism”.
Saturday got here the tipping level, when Maduro and his spouse had been kidnapped by US particular forces and brought to the US to face trial on costs introduced towards them within the US.
