Reports surrounding the capture of Nicolás Maduro have reignited a long-standing question among Venezuelans: who really ruled Venezuela?
Much of the online commentary has portrayed Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, as collateral damage—a hostage to her husband’s crimes. That interpretation, however, ignores decades of political reality inside Venezuela.
Cilia Flores was not a passive first lady who rose quietly alongside power. Venezuelans knew her long before Maduro ever reached the presidency, and many regarded her as the real power behind the throne.
She is six years older than Maduro and a trained lawyer, widely considered one of the country’s most formidable political operators. When they met in the early 1990s, Maduro was a bus driver with no formal higher education. Flores, by contrast, was already a prominent attorney and a key figure within Hugo Chávez’s inner circle.
It was Flores who led the legal team that successfully secured Chávez’s release from prison after a failed coup attempt. At the time, she was married with three children, while Maduro had one son. Her proximity to Chávez and her legal influence were already firmly established.
Those close to the regime have long described Flores as possessing a fierce and dominant personality. Chávez reportedly managed her career carefully, ensuring that she and Maduro rose in parallel, never too far apart. When Maduro became head of the National Assembly, Flores followed. When Chávez designated Maduro as his successor in 2013, Flores became his official wife that same year.
Her influence extended beyond formal politics into the darker machinery of the regime. In 2015, two of her nephews were arrested while attempting to traffic 800 kilograms of cocaine. They were extradited to the United States, convicted in New York in 2016, and sentenced to 18 years in prison each.
In 2022, they were granted clemency by president Joe Biden and exchanged for seven Americans detained in Venezuela—a move that quietly underscored how deeply criminal networks and geopolitics had become intertwined.
The idea that Cilia Flores was merely an accessory to Maduro’s rule does not withstand scrutiny. If anything, the evidence suggests she was instrumental in shaping his ascent and consolidating power around him.
There is a saying that behind every powerful man stands a powerful woman.
In this case, it may be more accurate to say that she not only built his career, but may also have sealed his fate.
And if a full forensic reckoning of Venezuela’s collapse is now under way, Flores will not be a footnote. She will be central to the story.