Amid the many questions swirling since last weekend's dramatic events in Caracas – and there are many – one that refuses to go away centres on the bespectacled woman now leading what US officials are calling Venezuela's 'interim authorities.'
Why Delcy?
What is it about Delcy Rodríguez, daughter of a former Marxist guerilla and deputy to ousted dictator Nicolas Maduro, that has caught the eye of the Trump administration?
And why has Washington decided on an avowed 'Chavista' revolutionary to stay in power, rather than backing the opposition leader, María Corina Machado, whose opposition movement is widely believed to have won the 2024 presidential elections?
The answer, according to one former US ambassador to Venezuela, is simple.
'They've gone for stability over democracy,' says Charles Shapiro, who served as George W Bush's ambassador in Caracas from 2002-04.
'They've kept the dictatorial regime in place without the dictator. The henchmen are still there.' But the alternative, involving wholesale regime change and backing Machado's opposition movement, {...}
