Who is Cilia Flores, Maduro’s wife and ‘first combatant’ of Venezuelan socialism?

By Gonzalo Zegarra

(CNN) — Captured along with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro early Saturday was his wife and top adviser, Cilia Flores, who was dragged from their bedroom along with her husband by US troops. The couple were quickly spirited out of the country to stand trial on US drug-trafficking charges.

“Cilita,” as Maduro calls her, served as first lady for more than a decade — although in the official jargon of the socialist movement known as Chavismo she is referred to as “first combatant.” She has been Maduro’s partner for more than 30 years, during which time she built her own political capital and was considered one of the most powerful women in Venezuela.

Cilia Flores, born in 1956 in the town of Tinaquillo in central Venezuela, grew up in working-class neighborhoods in western Caracas. She met Maduro, who frequently emphasizes his humble origins, during the early days of the Chavista movement. A lawyer specializing in labor and criminal law, she provided legal assistance to Hugo Chávez, the movement’s namesake, and other military officers who were captured after attempting to overthrow then-President Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1992. Maduro, for his part, also campaigned for Chávez’s release and was on the then-lieutenant colonel’s security team.

“During that struggle for Chávez’s release, we were involved in street activities. I always remember a meeting in Catia, and when a young man asked to speak, he spoke, and I just stared at him. I said, ‘How intelligent,’” Flores recalled in November 2023, on the first episode of Maduro’s podcast.

Since then, they have remained inseparable, but Flores forged her own political path. She was elected to her first term as a member of the National Assembly in 2000, the year after Chávez was elected president. She won a seat again in 2005, and a year later she became the first woman to preside over parliament, succeeding Maduro, who became Chávez’s foreign minister.

During her tenure, she banned journalists from entering the legislative chamber. She was also criticized for hiring dozens of relatives as employees in Congress. In an interview with the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, she responded that the complaint was never formally filed and that it was a smear campaign, but she confirmed the hirings: “Yes, my family members were hired based on their own merits; I am proud of them and I will defend their work whenever necessary.”

A staunch Chávez loyalist

Between 2009 and 2011, she also served as the second vice president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, then led by Chávez, who in 2012 appointed Flores attorney general.

Alongside Maduro, who was already vice president, she visited Chávez in Cuba, where he was treated for cancer during the final months of life. Her Twitter profile, when she created in 2015, read “Daughter of Chávez,” although she changed it a few years later to “Chavista.”

Flores and Maduro, who met after Chávez surrendered following his 1992 failed coup attempt, married in July 2013, after two decades together and shortly after Maduro’s victory in the presidential election against then-opposition candidate Henrique Capriles.

“She has a significant political background. When she became first lady, she took a back seat. But for many, she is the power behind the throne or a top adviser,” Carmen Arteaga, a doctor of political science and associate professor at Simón Bolívar University, told CNN. “When they got married, she significantly lowered her profile. She hardly makes public statements, she doesn’t compete for attention, she takes a step back,” she added.

According to Arteaga, Flores’s support and advice would have been fundamental during those years when Chavismo was experiencing internal disputes over Chávez’s succession. Maduro, anointed by the then-president, was still consolidating his leadership over other prominent figures close to the deceased leader, such as Rafael Ramírez, the ousted president of Petróleos de Venezuela and minister of energy and petroleum; lawmaker Diosdado Cabello or Vice President Elías Jaua.

In that circle, few women have held high-ranking positions. For Arteaga, there was “no doubt” that Flores was the most powerful woman in the country, at least as long as Chavismo remained in power.

Wielding power behind the scenes

Political scientist Estefanía Reyes told CNN that it was difficult to quantify her power because she wielded it “behind the scenes” and it was not institutionalized. “It’s dangerous not to understand the dynamics of decision-making, because that makes it difficult to ensure accountability and transparency regarding influence,” she said. If there ever was a dual leadership, it was never formalized, unlike in Nicaragua between President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo.

Reyes also pointed out that Flores appeared in recent years in a supporting role as a mother figure, seeking to connect more with the public rather than as a figure of electoral competition. “Chavismo instrumentalizes the role of mother. Symbolically, she remains bound by gender restrictions,” said Reyes, an assistant professor at Western University in Canada.

For years, the position of first lady was not used in Venezuela, since Chávez had divorced. When Maduro assumed power, he christened Flores “first combatant,” arguing that “first lady” was an “aristocratic concept.”

In this regard, Reyes noted that, despite the informal change of title, the position continues to be linked, as in other countries, to causes such as child protection and the leadership of charitable organizations.

Political scientist Nastassja Rojas, a professor of human rights at Javeriana University in Colombia, agreed. “Chavismo betrays everything they had criticized by presenting her as the first combatant. What she now projects is a person who is the president’s partner, who accompanies him. In recent years, they have completely changed her profile,” she told CNN.

Nephews convicted in US

With fewer appearances once Maduro’s government began, Flores was almost exclusively limited to one of the numerous radio programs that figures from the ruling party have had, titled “With Cilia in the Family.”

But her name returned to the headlines in 2015 when two of her nephews were arrested on drug-trafficking charges by undercover agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Haiti. Flores called the incident a kidnapping, but both were tried and convicted in New York and sentenced to 18 years in prison for conspiring to import cocaine into the US. In 2022, they were released in a prisoner exchange between Caracas and Washington.

She was also sanctioned in 2018 by Canadian authorities, along with 13 other officials, a day after the Organization of American States reported that the Maduro government had committed crimes against humanity.

A few months later, the U.S. Treasury Department added its own sanctions, explaining in a press release that Maduro “relies on his inner circle to remain in power.” In response, Maduro declared: “If you want to attack me, attack me. Don’t mess with Cilia. Don’t mess with the family. Don’t be cowards. Her only crime is being my wife.”

By this time, Flores had returned to the Legislative Palace after being elected in 2017 to the Constituent Assembly and, in 2021, as a deputy in the National Assembly, a position she held at the time of her capture.

A polarizing figure

Arteaga, the professor at Simón Bolívar University, maintained that Flores has not distinguished herself by promoting feminist proposals, although socialism champions the oppressed, including women in that group. Flores “follows the Chavista agenda; she has not been known for a feminist agenda,” Arteaga added.

While she has not attracted as much public attention as Maduro, Arteaga said, she is just as polarizing as the ousted president. “Currently, she is unpopular; she has the same image as him. They work closely together, and public opinion perceives them as a single entity,” Arteaga said.

Thus, when the government distributed millions of toys for the 2022 Christmas holidays, it handed out images of “SuperBigote,” a cartoon character inspired by Maduro, but also the “Cilita” doll, the co-star of the animated series.

During the 2024 presidential campaign that resulted in Maduro’s disputed reelection, Flores accompanied her husband to several events, even dancing with him on stage.

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