VENEZUELA HAS been plunged into political uncertainty after President Hugo Chávez broke three weeks of silence on Thursday night to confirm he has cancer.
In a live television address, the 56-year-old leader said a cancerous tumour was successfully removed from his “pelvic region”. He said the tumour was discovered during an operation on June 10th to remove an abscess, requiring a second intervention. He is now receiving treatment “on the way towards a full recovery”.
Opposition figures in Venezuela say they believe he is suffering from prostate cancer.
Mr Chávez made his announcement from Havana in Cuba, where he is receiving treatment. A typically ebullient speaker, he was unusually sombre during the short 15-minute address. He looked drawn and to have lost weight since his last appearance in public during visits to Brazil and Ecuador early last month.
Thursday’s confirmation that the man who has dominated Venezuelan politics for more than a decade has cancer has sparked a constitutional wrangle and increased uncertainty ahead of next year’s presidential election.
The opposition says Mr Chávez cannot legally continue to govern while he receives treatment abroad and must turn over power until he recovers and returns home. But his vice-president says the president is only constitutionally obliged to step aside after an absence of 180 days. Speaking to a local radio station, Elías Jaua insisted Mr Chávez would be back before then and that doctors had confirmed he was still able to rule while receiving treatment.
In a bid to avoid any appearance of a political vacuum, Mr Jaua appeared on national television immediately after the president revealed his cancer diagnosis. Flanked by top civilian and military members of the government, he said they would continue executing the president’s plans to transform Venezuela into a socialist society.
The head of the country's armed forces also publicly dismissed any chance of constitutional instability. "We have seen our commandantewith a few kilos less, but on his feet. The reality is he is recovering, he is fine," said Gen Henry Rangel Silva.
Attention will now focus on whether Mr Chávez returns to Venezuela in time for Tuesday’s celebration of the bicentenary of the country’s independence, which he would be loath to miss. The president has a mystical reverence for the founding fathers of South America’s republics, and named his Bolivarian Revolution after Venezuela’s great independence hero, Simón Bolívar.
His failure to appear at ceremonies to mark 200 years since his country’s declaration of independence from Spain would likely raise further questions about the seriousness of his condition. In Thursday’s statement, Mr Chávez pointedly failed to say when he expects to return home.
The highly personal style of his 12 years in power means there are few obvious successors within his movement ready to replace him should his health prevent him running for a fourth term in next year’s presidential elections.
That race was showing signs of being tighter than previous ones, as growing economic and social chaos provokes rising discontent with his rule. The country’s fractious opposition is showing signs of rallying around a unity candidate to run against Mr Chávez.
In a bid to retain power the president is preparing to spend lavishly ahead of next year’s vote, authorising the doubling of the country’s debt ceiling earlier this year. But falling oil production – which accounts for 95 per cent of the country’s exports – means the economy is only struggling out of a two-year recession, despite high international energy prices. Official mismanagement has devastated capacity in many other sectors, notably food production.
Meanwhile, a bloody prison revolt in Caracas has spotlighted spiralling violence in the country, with local non-governmental organisations saying the murder rate has quadrupled since Mr Chávez entered office in 1999.