Caracas Chronicles

#NowWhatVenezuela keeps you informed about what’s happening deep inside la patria—from headline-making events to underreported stories that provide the clearest picture of our reality. This digest will now be published every two weeks.

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The humiliating destinies of Rodríguez and Sánchez

When Maduro reshuffled his cabinet in August 2024, amid a wave of state violence following the electoral fraud, public attention centered on Diosdado Cabello’s Interior Ministry appointment and Delcy Rodríguez replacing star colonel Pedro Tellechea in the Petroleum Ministry (Tellechea was arrested shortly after). But other decision revealed how Maduro and his inner circle play a humiliating game with longtime loyalists and former “golden boys,” sidelining them without needing to purge anyone, criticize their records, or resort to the old anti-corruption discourse.

That was the case with Héctor Rodríguez—once Chávez’s protégé and the first to congratulate Maduro on his “victory” in the uncertain hours of July 28, when polling stations had closed and everyone knew who had really won. Rodríguez was stripped of Miranda’s governorship and replaced by an obscure chavista bureaucrat (now governor-elect), only to be reassigned to the most tragic portfolio in the cabinet.

Rodríguez had spent years trying to frame his Movimiento Futuro as a fresh alternative to the repression and corruption that define Maduro and Cabello’s rule, emphasizing youth inclusion and grassroots activism through chavista-aligned communes and “social movements” (quotation marks necessary there). But as Minister of Education, he’s now tasked with managing one of the most suffering, outspoken, and combative sectors in the country: the teachers—the very professionals meant to shape Venezuela’s future.

Unlike politicians, Venezuela’s teachers can’t afford to go silent or take time to rethink their strategy. They must keep pushing, surviving on starvation wages while working in crumbling schools abandoned by public investment and care, watching students and colleagues alike drop out of an educational system that may take decades to rebuild. According to a 2024 public survey by the NGO Fundaredes, 72% of Venezuelan teachers are no longer active in the school system, and student enrollment has dropped by 46%. The same report found that only 28% of classrooms nationwide are currently functional.

Then there’s Ricardo Sánchez, now Minister of University Education, who was once Rodríguez’s rival when both were student leaders at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV). Sánchez—back then in the opposition—led the university student federation and campaigned against Chávez’s constitutional amendment in the lead-up to the 2007 referendum. Rodríguez, a self-declared Marxist and law student, later became the founding president of the PSUV Youth.

Sánchez’s story is well-known: from serving as María Corina Machado’s deputy in the 2010 parliament to becoming one of the first opposition figures to defect and join chavismo. His new mission? To complete what chavismo hasn’t managed in 25 years: take over the country’s autonomous public universities—especially the UCV, alma mater to both him and Rodríguez. When appointing Sánchez, Maduro instructed him to work from his office between 7 and 9 a.m. and spend the rest of his day doing “street work” on campuses—where, ironically, most people who recognize him likely despise him. In last year’s UCV student elections, the pro-government platform received fewer than 100 votes.

Sánchez has made some headway. At the end of June, his ministry announced that universities would no longer hold internal admissions exams and that the allocation of university spots would now be handled by the University Sector Planning Office (OPSU). Under this system, the top students in public high schools—those with the highest grades (between 19 and 20 out of 20)—will be guaranteed access to the university and degree program of their choice, regardless of their actual academic preparedness. A similar benefit will be extended to the top three students in each private high school (see this report by Efecto Cocuyo for more details).

This has triggered new alarm among university leaders, who have already voiced opposition to the policy. They are watching student performance deteriorate—not just in terms of grades, but in actual skills like reading comprehension and numerical reasoning.

More on that: A 2023–2024 study by the Education School of Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB) found that high school students in Venezuela are performing at a precarious level. The SECEL UCAB 2024 study, which administered 10,000 tests to students in public and private schools, showed average scores of 7.84/20 in verbal skills, 7.51 in math, and 7.61 in reading comprehension. Public school students scored almost two points lower in math than their private-school counterparts (5.84 vs. 7.74) and 1.3 points lower in verbal skills (6.70 vs. 8.02).

So what happened next? UCV’s university council announced it would move forward with its own admissions process for the next academic year—SIMADI 2025 (Sistema de Ingreso por Mérito Académico y Diagnóstico Integral)—which will include a test covering verbal, logical, and numerical reasoning. A dialogue with state authorities is also being proposed.

The Amazon becomes the emergency’s epicenter

It’s no longer just the Andes and the Llanos experiencing a crisis from extreme rainfall—southern and northeastern Venezuela are now also in a state of emergency, with growing risks. The governor of Amazonas reported that nearly 1,000 people are now in shelters due to the rising Orinoco River, which has reached its highest level in at least seven years. Just across the border, Brazil’s Amazon region recently suffered historic flooding from the swelling of the Negro and Amazon rivers, which affected some 52,000 families so far (last year, an event of this kind in Brazil left 127 dead and two million homeless).

In Monagas, 10 municipalities have been affected. In Delta Amacuro, the new governor is warning that things could take a turn for the worse at any moment, according to Radio Fe y Alegría. Three areas are already under threat from the Orinoco’s rise, and local authorities are beginning to count how many families might be affected—and how much aid would be needed.

In response, Maduro announced the creation of a new initiative: the Gran Misión Madre Tierra (Great Mother Earth Mission), aimed at early detection and disaster prevention. This may be an acknowledgment that events like this year’s, and those in Las Tejerías and Cumanacoa in previous years, are likely to keep happening—as we explained here.

Repression hasn’t stopped either

Everyone knows it—even if most victims stay silent. Rafael Uzcátegui, co-director of NGO Laboratorio de Paz, says cases of enforced disappearances continue to emerge in recent days, but the fear among families is so intense that few are willing to speak out or file formal complaints.Some cases, however, have come to light. Rodrigo Pérez, communications chief for Vente Venezuela in Bolívar state, has been missing since Sunday. So has Luis José Magallanes, the party’s coordinator in Yaracuy. In addition to them, 35 more people have been detained—mostly oil workers from the Amuay and Cardón refineries in Falcón and the Paraguaná Refining Complex in Anzoátegui—according to Runrunes.