Nicolas Maduro and the Two-Caracas Reality Two Months After His Capture
At the Caracas airport, the first political message hits before the heat does: walls covered in “wanted” posters for opposition candidate Edmundo González, accusing him of violent acts. Outside, billboards show the face of nicolas maduro and his wife, now stamped with a new refrain: “We want them back. ” Two months after US strikes on January 3 and the seizure of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the city’s signs insist on continuity—even as its people describe something more complicated.
What has changed in Caracas since nicolas maduro was seized?
The most visible change is also the most paradoxical: public space appears to lean harder into the imagery of Maduro, even after his arrest. On March 3, a government rally marked two months since Maduro’s arrest, with crowds wearing T-shirts bearing his face and repeating loyalist slogans. One young protester, Alí Rodríguez, framed it as a constitutional fight to “recover him, ” calling Maduro “a prisoner of war” and insisting, “our priority is to recover him. ”
Yet beyond the rally sound system, another Caracas is described in lowered voices. Some attendees in loyalist uniforms said they were public employees obligated to show up and still afraid to speak freely. A 22-year-old worker, speaking anonymously, dismissed the official story: “It’s false. It’s all a lie. ” Another public employee, “Elena” (not her real name), said thousands of public workers are ordered to attend rallies or risk punishment, adding that she and colleagues recently received a $150 bonus on top of a $120 monthly salary for turning up. “Two of my colleagues didn’t receive the bonus because they didn’t go, ” she said.
How is power being exercised under Delcy Rodríguez after Nicolas Maduro?
A shift at the top has been accompanied by a new, overtly transactional style of governance. Former Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez has taken power and is closely cooperating with the United States. Washington, once an adversary, now describes a “wonderful” relationship, pointing to some political prisoner releases and new oil and mining deals.
In a separate analysis of the post-incursion landscape, the state is described as moving through a rapid “metamorphosis” under “tutelage and transactional pragmatism, ” with the government of Delcy Rodríguez pursuing transformation “with remarkable speed and bluntness. ” That analysis argues the system’s survival has demanded a sacrifice of its original forms—leaning on economic opening as “social anesthesia” and the sophistication of repression as a guarantee of stability, even as traditional political storytelling is traded for realism.
One case carrying outsized weight inside this new atmosphere is the alleged detention of Alex Saab and businessman Raúl Gorrín. Saab was removed as Minister of Industries and National Production on January 17. Delcy Rodríguez initially presented the move as a departure to assume new responsibilities, but it was later framed as the beginning of Saab’s demise in Venezuela. The same analysis states SEBIN agents detained Saab and Gorrín, and describes the operation as carried out with the knowledge and cooperation of the FBI. Both men then disappeared from the public radar.
The analysis also notes the dismissal on February 23 of Camilla Fabri, Saab’s wife, who had been appointed vice minister for international communication a year earlier, as reinforcing the hypothesis of Saab’s detention. It further describes a demand for judicial cooperation involving nine figures close or formerly close to the government, including Maduro’s son (known as Nicolasito), Tareck El Aissami, Alex Saab, and Raúl Gorrín. In the same account, Saab is described as “the man who knows where the money is. ”
Why do young Venezuelans describe both hope and fear after Nicolas Maduro?
For many young Venezuelans, the uncertainty sits in the gap between removal and reform. Some doubt much has changed beyond Maduro’s absence. Elena said a “full clear-out” is needed, naming Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino López as figures who “most represent terror” and remain in post. She also said that under Cabello, armed paramilitaries known as “colectivos” are used to intimidate the opposition.
Her frustration is not only political. She described daily life as relentlessly expensive, with education a “privilege” and non-exploitative jobs rare. She said she does not want to emigrate like the millions who fled Venezuela’s economic crisis, but wants political and economic reform—an aspiration she described as increasingly hard to speak aloud. “You’re taught you should always preach the truth, ” she said, “but in a country like Venezuela sometimes you have to practice self-censorship. ”
Elsewhere in Caracas, “Ana” (not her real name), a 25-year-old teacher from Maracaibo earning $250 a month, said she has already decided to leave, planning to emigrate to Spain. She described living with fear over social media: she has never known what it is like “to not feel like you could get killed, just because you posted the wrong thing on social media. ” She also pointed to basic services, saying she wants to live somewhere “that actually has electricity, ” recalling her mother crying in private when the family lacked money and people looting shops in Maracaibo when the city went a week without power. “It can be very lonely, ” she said. “Most of my friends had to flee the country to pursue something better. ”
What responses are visible—and what questions remain?
The most visible response is political theater: mass rallies, billboard campaigns, and the insistence that Maduro remains the center of legitimacy even while absent. Alongside that is a more institutional response: a government under Delcy Rodríguez moving quickly, aligning with the United States, and presenting new deals while pointing to political prisoner releases.
But the human response is harder to stage. In the same city where T-shirts and slogans fill the street, public employees describe coercion, bonuses tied to attendance, and punishment for absence. In the same moment when officials speak of a new relationship with Washington, some young adults describe a daily reality of self-censorship and a fear that the people they associate with repression remain in power.
Back at the airport, the posters and billboards tell travelers what they are meant to believe. Two months after his seizure, nicolas maduro remains everywhere in ink and fabric—while the future, as voiced by the young people who live under the signs, feels unsettled and contested, still waiting to be decided in more than slogans.
