The spectacular Nicolás Maduro, on the part of the United States, has, to some extent, overshadowed the impact that the arrest of Cilia Flores, his wife, also has. The first lady or “first combatant” of the nation, according to the official narrative of the Miraflores Palace.
Flores has been one of the leaders with the greatest power and influence within the circles of power in Venezuela, with a fundamental influence on the decisions of the Chavista Government. Also responsible for some of the most important measures taken by the revolutionary command in power, as well as to administer the country. During the 12 years of Maduro’s government, Flores abandoned the public profile he had had during Hugo Chávez’s administration and retreated to work from the shadows in the basements of power. His appearances in these years were occasional, almost always holding hands with Maduro.
Born in Tinaquillo, in the State of Cojedes, in 1956, a lawyer by profession, married twice and with three children, Flores entered politics shortly after February 4, 1992, at which time Hugo Chávez promoted a military coup against the Venezuelan democracy of that time. Like other far-left activists of the time, Flores went to the Yare prison to personally meet Chávez and place himself at his command to carry out the Bolivarian revolution. There he met , with whom he would establish romantic relationships some time later. In 1997, all of them founded the Fifth Republic Movement, the first electoral expression of Chavismo.
As happened to Maduro, Flores cultivated a very close political relationship with Hugo Chávez, for whom he felt total admiration. She was one of the spokespersons for the Chavista cause in the first years of the revolution and had extensive and very controversial parliamentary activity. Founder of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) in 2007, she was attorney general in 2012 and president of the National Assembly for four years (2006-2011), replacing Maduro himself in that position. The two married in 2013, when Maduro assumed the presidency after Chávez’s death.
Over the years, Flores developed enormous cunning to expand his influence in the circles of the Judiciary and the National Electoral Council (CNE), promoting people close to his leadership within the circles of power and forming an enviable network of contacts and allies.
As he began to articulate power, Flores added enemies and accusations from various fronts. The opposition parliamentarians blamed her for inflating the payroll of the National Assembly during her years as president, incorporating many of her direct relatives into important positions, and they exposed her to the wasteful behavior and life of luxury that several of her close friends, brothers and nephews led.
On November 11, 2015, in an intelligence operation carried out by the DEA in Haiti, his nephews were arrested, accused of trying to illegally enter 800 kilos of cocaine into the United States. The case of the narconephews, as the case became known, became a taboo topic in Venezuela and one of the most uncomfortable for the revolutionary leadership.
The scandal evaporated in public opinion thanks to censorship and political conflict, but it became a family nightmare for the presidential couple. Both nephews in the context of the dialogue in Barbados. That Democratic administration maintained, together with the Venezuelan opposition, a strategy to try to commit Chavismo to holding reliable and transparent presidential elections.
Like other well-known leaders of Chavismo, Flores has been sanctioned by several countries—Colombia, Canada, Panama and the United States—accused of conspiring to undermine democracy in Venezuela and of having links to some of the most impactful corruption cases within the Government. Flores has been occasionally denying all these allegations for years, accusing his critics of being “mercenaries”; “lackeys of imperialism” and part of the “pitiyanqui opposition,” as Chávez liked to say so much.
When the controversies surrounding her figure began to escalate, in the midst of the country’s socioeconomic collapse, Flores decided to assume an institutional role, with a more apolitical and family role with her husband. For a brief time, Venezolana de Televisión broadcast a program called As a family with Ciliain which the leader approached everyday, family and life in society issues.
