Diosdado Cabello Rondón (born April 15, 1963) is a
VenezuelaVenezuela , officially titled Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It is a continental mainland with numerous islands located off its coastline in the Caribbean Sea...
n politician. A former member of the armed forces, he was involved in
Hugo ChávezHugo Rafael Chávez Frías is the President of Venezuela. As the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, Chávez promotes a political doctrine of participatory democracy, socialism and Latin American and Caribbean cooperation...
's February 1992 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt. He became a leading member of Chavez's Movimiento V República (MVR), and remains a leading member of the
United Socialist Party of VenezuelaThe United Socialist Party of Venezuela is the name of a left-wing political party in Venezuela which resulted from the fusion of some of the political and social forces that support the Bolivarian Revolution led by incumbent President Hugo Chávez. It is the current ruling party of the country and...
into which MVR was merged in 2007. He is currently the Public Works & Housing Minister.
Background
Diosdado Cabello was born in El Furrial, Monagas State. His background is in engineering: he has an undergraduate degree in systems engineering and a graduate degree in engineering project management from military universities. A former member of the armed forces, he was involved in Chávez's abortive
coup d'étatA coup d'état , or coup for short, is the sudden unconstitutional deposition of a legitimate government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another, either civil or military...
of February 1992, for which he was jailed for two years.
Political career
Following Chávez's
1998 electoral victoryIn the December 6, 1998 Venezuelan presidential election, Hugo Chávez was elected to his first term as President of Venezuela with the largest percentage of the popular vote in four decades...
, he helped set up the pro-Chávez grassroots civil society organizations known as "
Bolivarian CirclesThe Bolivarian Circles are a loosely-knit political and social organization of workers' councils in Venezuela originally begun by President Hugo Chávez in 2001.They are named in honor of Simón Bolívar, the leader who transformed most of South America from Spanish colonial outposts to the...
". He was head of telecoms regulator
ConatelConatel may be:* Conatel - Honduras' Comisión Nacional de Telecomunicaciones* Conatel - Venezuela's Comisión Nacional de Telecomunicaciones...
during the time the market was opened to competition. In May 2001 he became Chavez' chief of staff, and was appointed Vice President by President
Hugo ChávezHugo Rafael Chávez Frías is the President of Venezuela. As the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, Chávez promotes a political doctrine of participatory democracy, socialism and Latin American and Caribbean cooperation...
on January 13, 2002, replacing
Adina BastidasAdina Bastidas Castillo is a Venezuelan economist active in politics. She was appointed Vice President of Venezuela on December 24, 2000 by Hugo Chávez, and served in the post until January 13, 2002, the first woman to hold the job in the country's history...
. 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 April 13, 2002, he took on the duties of the presidency on a temporary basis, replacing
Pedro CarmonaPedro Francisco Carmona Estanga is a former Venezuelan trade organization leader who was briefly declared President of Venezuela during an abortive 2002 military coup against Hugo Chávez. He occupied the office of President from April 12 to April 13...
, head of the Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce, as interim president after the coup d'état 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 PresidentThe Constitutional Citizen President of the United Mexican States is the head of state of Mexico. Under the Constitution, the president is also the head of government and the Supreme Commander of the Mexican armed forces...
Pedro LascuráinPedro José Domingo de la Calzada Manuel María Lascuráin Paredes was both Mexico and the world's briefest-ever serving president....
.
On April 28, 2002, Cabello was replaced as Vice President by
José Vicente RangelJosé Vicente Rangel Vale is a Venezuelan leftist politician. He ran for president three times in the 1970s and 1980s, and later supported Hugo Chávez, successively becoming foreign minister, defense minister, and Vice President in Chávez's government.-Political activism:His political activism...
. He was named interior minister in May 2002, and then infrastructure minister in January 2003.
Miranda State Governor Election, 2004 Results
Source: CNE data |
| Candidates | Votes | % |
|---|
| Diosdado Cabello |
345752 |
52% |
| Enrique Mendoza |
320731 |
48% |
|
In October 2004, he was elected to a four-year term as
GovernorA governor is a governing official, usually the executive of a non-sovereign level of government, ranking under the head of state...
of Miranda State. He lost the 2008 election to
Henrique Capriles RadonskiHenrique Capriles Radonski is a Venezuelan politician. From 2000 until 2008, Capriles was the mayor of Baruta Municipality of Caracas, he launched his candidacy for the Miranda state government in 2008 and was declared the democratic union candidate after the ex-governor Enrique Mendoza was forced...
, and was subsequently appointed Public Works & Housing Minister.
His sister, Glenna Daboin, is a political scientist residing in the U.S., and his brother, José David Cabello, was the Minister of Infrastructure in Venezuela.