Fabiana Rosales, the 26-year-old wife of Juan Guaido, Venezuela’s self-proclaimed interim president, emerged in the political spotlight last week after she arrived in the United States to meet with President Donald Trump and other members of his administration.
Western media have already hailed her as an international ambassador for the Venezuelan opposition and a potent force: with a travel ban imposed on Guaido by the government of Nicolas Maduro, Rosales has taken highly publicised tours of neighbouring Peru and Chile, where she met with the presidents of both countries.
In a bid to shore up international support for the opposition, Rosales made it clear that she unconditionally supported Guaido’s efforts to oust Maduro and convince Venezuela’s Armed Forces to turn their backs on the legitimately elected president:
“Look, I am the wife of President Juan Guaido and I will accompany him on whatever route he takes and we will overcome whatever obstacles we face as we have done through all our years together. But I got involved in politics because I want to change my country”, she said during an interview in Lima, Peru’s capital.
Reacting to Rosales’ increasing political involvement, Venezuela’s Ambassador to Chile Arevalo Mendez told local media that she was “trying to boost Guaido’s image, as support for his movement in Venezuela deflates”.
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Many social media users have been outraged by the fact that Western media and politicians have started calling Rosales the first lady of Venezuela, and slammed her as a “puppet”:
Since her university years, Rosales has been a member of Popular Will, a political party founded by Guaido and another opposition figure, Leopoldo Lopez, in 2009. It was at a 2011 youth rally for the party that the two met, and eventually got married in 2013; the couple’s daughter Miranda Eugenia was born four years later.
In 2013, Rosales, who said that she always knew she wanted to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become a journalist, graduated from Universidad Rafael Bellosco Chacin. Her father, who was a farmer, also inspired her political activism, she said.
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Earlier this week, Venezuela’s National Constituent Assembly stripped Juan Guaido of parliamentary immunity and allowed a judicial investigation against the opposition leader to proceed.
Juan Guaido pledged to oppose Maduro while being sworn in as president of Venezuela’s disempowered National Assembly on 5 January. On 23 January, two days after the Venezuelan Supreme Court annulled his election, Guaido declared himself interim president in a move that was instantly recognised by the United States and prompted another 50 countries to follow suit.
In the meantime, Venezuela’s embattled President Nicolas Maduro has denounced Guaido’s proclamation as an attempted coup d’etat orchestrated by Washington. Despite the fact that dozens of countries have recognised Guaido, many other nations, including Russia, Cuba, and Turkey, have voiced their support for Maduro.