Until three months ago she was an anonymous girl from Caracas, originally from the Andean region of Merida, who was trying to put together some money by selling t-shirts and women's shirts on the Internet. She had just become a mother, her husband an equally unknown opposition deputy, who in her Christmas pictures with her and little Miranda was smiling behind a toothbrush.
Today, at only 26, Fabiana Rosales will go through the door of the White House to meet Secretary of State Mike Pence, and try to open a new phase in the stalemate of the Venezuelan crisis. Where a country literally in the dark - over 90 percent of homes suffer another devastating blackout - remains governed by force of arms by Nicolás Maduro but largely recognizes the legitimacy of the leadership of Fabiana's husband, Juan Guaidó.
Among the many things invented in recent times in Venezuela there is also this, the first encargada lady, as defined by her press men, something we can translate as the first lady shadow. Fabiana accompanies Guaidó in rallies in Caracas, then followed him on his journey to South America in search of consensus last month, and now moves abroad alone as an ambassador for the fight against dictatorship. For at least two reasons: the husband must stay in Venezuela to keep the opposition compact and then not to risk being rejected on his return, as might have happened the last time. Venezuela does not really need a shadow president in exile.
After flying to Chile and Peru to meet with her husband's two heads of state and lecture at universities, Fabiana is now in the United States. In the heart of the empire that according to the chavismo narrative would be at the origin of all the problems of Venezuela, lack of light included.
Fabiana and Juan met seven years ago, in an opposition march where they both sympathized with the Voluntad Popular party. She is the daughter of a farmer and a journalist, she accompanied both her father to sell fruit with a pickup truck, and her mother in her reportage, finally becoming fond of this last profession, studied at the university.
His parable is typical of the Venezuelan middle class in recent years, devastated by the economic crisis and the deterioration of the country. His father died five years ago from a heart attack, which became fatal due to lack of medicine and an immediate hospitalization; she herself was kidnapped and kidnapped by bandits in Caracas; and with her husband and daughter she lives in an apartment rented in the capital by friends who have fled abroad, because the construction of their home is paralyzed by the crisis. It is precisely this situation of total normality, for better or for worse - then transmitted through a skilful marketing operation - that has exploded beyond all expectations the popularity of the Guaidó couple in Venezuelan society. And that made a figure of the opposition gain credibility abroad, as never before in the twenty years of chavista.
In a granted interview as soon as it arrived in the United States, Fabiana Rosales reiterated the platform developed by her husband point by point, but also confirmed the choice of wanting to look like a simple adjuvant. I am mainly a mother, a sister and a wife, she replied to the AP agency. For the political analyst Dimitris Pantoulas, the Guaidó also send a message to the Venezuelan middle class. Fabiana is young, pretty, professional and socially committed, but somehow even traditionalist, she says.