Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez on Wednesday announced a major Cabinet personnel change, naming Gen. Gustavo González López as the country’s defense minister and replacing Gen. Vladimir Padrino López. Rodríguez said the transition was effective immediately and posted the announcement on her Telegram channel, according to the Associated Press.
In her announcement, Rodríguez also thanked Padrino López, describing him as having shown “loyalty to the Homeland,” and said she was confident he would serve in future roles. Padrino López had been a longstanding figure in Nicolás Maduro’s inner circle and a cornerstone of the military’s support for Maduro, AP reported.
The appointment comes as Venezuela’s political leadership faces increasing external pressure from the United States. AP said the U.S. administration has ramped up pressure on Maduro loyalists currently governing the oil-rich country, after Rodríguez took power as acting head of state.
Rodríguez became acting president more than 10 weeks earlier, after a Jan. 3 U.S. military operation captured Maduro and was intended to put him on trial in the United States on drug trafficking charges, AP said. The announcement on Wednesday thus places the defense leadership change in the broader timeline of Rodríguez’s early months in charge and of intensifying U.S.-Venezuela tensions.
AP said González López has an extensive intelligence background and has faced U.S. sanctions because of his role in cracking down on 2014 street protests. Since Jan. 6, when Rodríguez reshuffled her security detail, AP reported that González López has served as commander general of the presidential honor guard and head of the military’s feared counterintelligence agency.
Padrino López, by contrast, had been among the longest-serving Cabinet ministers since Maduro took office in 2013. AP said he later became one of the country’s longest-serving defense ministers after his appointment in 2014, making Wednesday’s change the most direct reshuffling of that security portfolio since the transition to Rodríguez’s acting government began.