Venezuela’s parliament on Monday reelected as its head Jorge Rodriguez, brother of interim president Delcy Rodriguez, in the aftermath of the shock ouster of Nicolas Maduro by US forces.
The Rodriguez siblings are now in control of Venezuela's executive and legislative branches, and Delcy Rodriguez has won the full support of the military and of Maduro's lawmaker son Nicolas Maduro Guerra.
The opening of the new parliament saw lawmakers chanting "Let's go Nico!" as they forcibly denounced the recent abduction of leader Nicolas Maduro in a US military operation.
The ousted Venezuelan president will stand trial on drug trafficking charges in New York with his wife, Cilia Flores.
"The president of the United States, Mr. Trump, claims to be the prosecutor, the judge, and the policeman of the world," senior lawmaker Fernando Soto Rojas told his colleagues in an inaugural session of Venezuela's National Assembly.
"We say: you will not succeed. And we will ultimately deploy all our solidarity so that our legitimate president, Nicolas Maduro, returns victorious to Miraflores," the presidential palace, he added.
Maduro's son, lawmaker Nicolas Maduro Moros, vowed in the same session that his toppled father and deposed first lady Cilia Flores "will return" to Venezuela.
"Sooner or later they will be with us... They will return," he said.
New members of Venezuela's single-chamber parliament were chosen last May in elections boycotted by much of the opposition, leaving 256 of the 286 seats in the hands of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and its allies.
"Let's go Nico!" was one of the slogans of Maduro's 2024 presidential campaign, followed by elections widely denounced by the opposition and dozens of global capitals as fraudulent.
Maduro arrived at a court in New York on Monday, where he is to stand trial on drug trafficking charges after a daring US military strike before dawn Saturday that resulted in his arrest.
His former vice president Delcy Rodriguez is serving as interim leader with the stated support of the Venezuelan military.
