As Venezuela held municipal elections on Sunday to fill hundreds of mayoral posts and thousands of local council seats, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a blistering rebuke of dictator Nicolás Maduro, condemning the vote as yet another attempt by the embattled socialist regime to cling to illegitimate power.

The election took place one day before the one-year anniversary of Venezuela’s widely discredited presidential race—a contest international observers and the United States unanimously labeled as fraudulent. President Donald J. Trump’s administration has intensified its pressure campaign on the Maduro regime, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declaring Friday that Maduro leads “an organization that supports terrorism against the United States.”

“One year since dictator Nicolás Maduro defied the will of the Venezuelan people by baselessly declaring himself the winner, the United States remains firm in its unwavering support to Venezuela’s restoration of democratic order and justice,” Rubio said in a Sunday statement. “Maduro is not the President of Venezuela and his regime is not the legitimate government.”

Rubio’s statement detailed Maduro’s control over the Cartel de los Soles (“Cartel of the Suns”), a violent criminal network deeply embedded in the Venezuelan state apparatus.

“Maduro is the leader of the designated narco-terrorist organization Cartel de Los Soles, and he is responsible for trafficking drugs into the United States and Europe,” Rubio said. “Maduro, currently indicted by our nation, has corrupted Venezuela’s institutions to assist the cartel’s criminal narco-trafficking scheme into the United States.”

The Justice Department indicted Maduro and 14 of his top officials in March 2020 on charges of narco-terrorism, drug trafficking, corruption, and related crimes. Earlier this year, just days before President Trump’s historic return to the White House, the State Department raised the reward for Maduro’s capture from $15 million to a staggering $25 million, according to Fox News.

Rubio emphasized that the timing of Sunday’s local elections—on the eve of the anniversary of the July 28 presidential election Maduro allegedly stole—was a deliberate tactic by the regime.

“For years, Maduro and his cronies have manipulated Venezuela’s electoral system to maintain their illegitimate grip on power,” Rubio said. “By scheduling the municipal elections on the eve of the anniversary of the stolen July 28 presidential election, the regime once again aims to deploy the military and police to suppress the will of the Venezuelan people.”

“The United States will continue working with our partners to hold accountable the corrupt, criminal, and illegitimate Maduro regime. Those who steal elections and use force to grasp power undermine America’s national security interests,” Rubio added.

The Treasury Department on Friday officially designated the Cartel de los Soles as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” entity, asserting that Maduro and top Venezuelan officials “corrupted the institutions of government in Venezuela, including parts of the military, intelligence apparatus, legislature, and the judiciary, to assist the cartel’s endeavors of trafficking narcotics into the United States.”

The cartel, whose name derives from the sun emblems worn by Venezuelan military officers, is accused of providing material support to both Tren de Aragua and Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel—two organizations formally designated as foreign terrorist groups by the Trump administration in February.

“The cartel supports Tren de Aragua in carrying out its objective of using the flood of illegal narcotics as a weapon against the United States,” Treasury officials said.

Bessent underscored the administration’s resolve on Friday:

“The Treasury Department will continue to execute on President Trump’s pledge to put America First by cracking down on violent organizations, including Tren de Aragua, the Sinaloa Cartel, and their facilitators, like Cartel de los Soles,” Bessent said.

Maduro has clung to power since 2013, but the United States has refused to recognize his presidency since 2019. Following the July 2024 election, the Trump administration—alongside numerous allied nations—once again rejected Maduro’s claim to victory, citing overwhelming evidence of electoral fraud.