Diosdado Cabello

Diosdado Cabello Rondón (born 15 April 1963 ) is a Venezuelan politician and current member of the National Assembly of Venezuela, where he previously served as Speaker.

He is also an active member of the Venezuelan armed forces, with the rank of captain.

In 1987, he graduated second in his class from the Venezuelan Military Academy.

His measured intelligence quotient (IQ) was ranked as the fifth-highest among all students in the institution's history.

His background is in engineering.

He has an undergraduate degree in systems engineering from the Instituto Universitario Politécnico de las Fuerzas Armadas Nacionales and a graduate degree in engineering project management from the Andrés Bello Catholic University.

While at Instituto Universitario Politécnico de las Fuerzas Armadas Nacionales, Cabello befriended Hugo Chávez and they played on the same baseball team.

During Chávez’s abortive coup d'état of February 1992 against the government of then-President Carlos Andrés Pérez, Cabello led a group of four tanks to attack Miraflores Palace.

Cabello was jailed for his participation in the coup, though President Rafael Caldera later pardoned him with the rest of the coup participants and Cabello was released after only two years without any charges.

After Chávez was released from jail in 1994, Cabello helped him run his political campaign as he was a prominent member of the Fifth Republic Movement Chávez was leading.

Following Chávez’s 1998 electoral victory, he helped set up the pro-Chávez grassroots civil society organizations known as "Bolivarian Circles" which have been compared to Cuba's Committees for the Defence of the Revolution and are parent organizations for the Colectivos.

From 1999-2000, Cabello was head of the national telecommunications commission (CONATEL).

The main telecommunications law he helped promulgate, known as the "Organic Telecommunications Law" (2000), was especially praised by the private sector.

Specifically, it ended the state's prior monopoly on the industry and fostered a significant level of free-market competition, as Cabello's work helped increase the treasury's revenue by $400 million dollars at a time when oil prices were not especially high.

Cabello played a key role in Hugo Chávez's return to power following the 2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt.

In May 2001, he became Chavez' chief of staff, and was appointed Vice President by President Hugo Chávez on 13 January 2002, replacing Adina Bastidas.

As such, he was responsible to both the president and the National Assembly, and for the relations between the executive and legislative branches of the government.

On 13 April 2002, he took on the duties of the presidency on a temporary basis, replacing Pedro Carmona, head of the Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce, as interim president during the coup d'état attempt when Chávez was kept prisoner and was consequently absent from office.

Upon taking office, Cabello said that "I, Diosdado Cabello, am assuming the presidency until such time as the president of the republic, Hugo Chávez Frías, appears."

A few hours later, Chávez was back in office.

This made Cabello’s presidency the world’s second briefest, after that of Mexican President Pedro Lascuráin.

On 28 April 2002, Cabello was replaced as Vice President by José Vicente Rangel.

Cabello was named interior minister in May 2002, and then infrastructure minister in January 2003.

Governor of Miranda state from 2004 to 2008, he lost the 2008 election to prominent opposition leader Henrique Capriles Radonski and was subsequently appointed Public Works & Housing Minister.

In October 2004, Cabello was elected to a four-year term as Governor of Miranda State.

He became a leading member of Chavez’s Movimiento V República (MVR), and remains a leading member of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela, into which MVR was merged in 2007.

In November 2009, he was additionally appointed head of the National Commission of Telecommunications, a position traditionally independent from the Ministry of Public Works and Housing.

In 2010, he was elected a member of parliament by his home state of Monagas.

In 2011, President Hugo Chávez named him the vice president of Venezuela’s ruling party, the PSUV.

In 2012, he was elected and sworn in as President of the National Assembly of Venezuela, the country’s parliament.

In 2013, there were at least 17 formal corruption allegations lodged against Cabello in Venezuela's prosecutors office.

He was elected president of the National Assembly each year until 2016.

He was the second and last president of the 2017 National Constituent Assembly.

Allegations of corruption involving Cabello includes being head of an international drug trafficking organization, accepting bribes from Derwick Associates for public works projects in Venezuela, using nepotism to reward friends and family members and directing colectivos while paying them with funds from Petróleos de Venezuela.

On 26 March 2020, the U.S. Department of State offered $10 million for information to bring him to justice in relation to drug trafficking and narco-terrorism.

Often described as the second most, if not the most, powerful man in Venezuela, Reuters notes that Cabello possesses significant "sway with the military and lawmakers plus close links to businessmen."

Diosdado Cabello was born in El Furrial, in the state of Monagas.