Tuesday, February 21st 2012 - 23:59 UTC

President Chavez announces he has to undergo another operation

Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez said on Tuesday he would have to undergo another operation after doctors in Cuba found a lesion in his pelvis where surgeons removed a large cancerous tumour last year.

”Because of the growing rumours, I'm obliged to put forward the information” confessed Chavez

The 57-year-old populist leader said he had travelled to Havana for the tests on Saturday. Rumours of the unannounced trip had prompted a flood of speculation among the opposition and supporters that he was at death's door.

“There is no metastasis. Just this small lesion in the same place where they removed the tumour,” Chavez said during a televised tour of a factory in his home state of Barinas.

“Because of the growing rumours, I'm obliged to put forward the information now ... it's a small lesion, about 2 cm across, very clearly visible. This will need to be taken out; it needs more surgery, supposedly less complicated than before.”

Donning a bright red hard hat to stroll around the proposed site of the Veneminsk factory, Chavez had joked with workers and looked to be in reasonable health. He did not say when the next operation was due to take place.

His information minister had earlier denounced the report that Chavez was back in Havana for emergency treatment as part of a “dirty war by scum,” launched by the opposition ahead of the Oct. 7 elections.

A prominent opposition-leaning Venezuelan journalist, Nelson Bocaranda, wrote on Monday that Chávez, who had two operations in Havana last June, had returned unexpectedly to Cuba and that some of his relatives were flying there too.

Chávez has insisted he is completely recovered, although medical experts say it is too soon to make such a call. Chávez's health is the wildcard in the run-up to the election, when he will seek a new six-year term.

The opposition is newly united behind one candidate youthful state governor Henrique Capriles and sees the vote as their best chance to end Chavez's 13 years in power.

Recent opinion polls have given Chávez an edge over Capriles, thanks partly to a huge program of new state spending on social projects. But about a third of Venezuelans remain undecided, and competition for their votes will be intense.
 

12 comments Feed

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1 ElaineB (#) Feb 22nd, 2012 - 01:37 am Report abuse
Six months, tops.
2 kbec (#) Feb 22nd, 2012 - 01:47 am Report abuse
That photo above needs a caption competition
3 Marcos Alejandro (#) Feb 22nd, 2012 - 05:31 am Report abuse
1 Sick wish.
4 GreekYoghurt (#) Feb 22nd, 2012 - 08:46 am Report abuse
Is the operation to actually insert a piece of chairman mao's brain in there?
5 lsolde (#) Feb 22nd, 2012 - 11:59 am Report abuse
First Cristina, then Hugo, who's next?
Someone likes us.
6 Idlehands (#) Feb 22nd, 2012 - 01:35 pm Report abuse
How much would the Americans pay to gain “influence” over the chap wielding a scalpel next to Chavez's brain?
7 ChrisR (#) Feb 22nd, 2012 - 03:27 pm Report abuse
I am sticking to the 12 months prediction I made some three months ago.

Clearly the steroid treatment failed.

Funny caption:
1) Some people in LatAm wished my finger was a barrel of a pistol and it went off!

2) The doctor says my brain SHOULD be here!

2) Should this finger be up my rectum to stop my brains falling out?
8 Think (#) Feb 22nd, 2012 - 05:58 pm Report abuse
TWIMC

I hope, from the deepest of my hearth, that you, your families and all your friends and their families get what you wish for Mr. Chavez…….. tenfold.
9 ChrisR (#) Feb 22nd, 2012 - 06:51 pm Report abuse
8 Think

I realise you think of me as a stupid Brit, BWTF do you mean by this post?

'deepest of my hearth (fireplace), I suspect that should have been HEART (the thing in your chest that pumps blood around the body).

The way you have phrased the final part of the sentence is also incorrect by including Chavez himself, as it leaves itself open to the inverse of what I suspect you meant.

I think you need to rethink it Think.
10 Xect (#) Feb 22nd, 2012 - 07:39 pm Report abuse
LOL Chris, it was a very comical post even if it was by accident.

It reminds of the Ello Ello

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ovkJn8YAg8
11 Think (#) Feb 22nd, 2012 - 07:47 pm Report abuse
TWIMC

I meant what I wrote.
Little “Sister” at (5) surely got it.
The turnips, of course, didn’t...........
12 briton (#) Feb 22nd, 2012 - 09:10 pm Report abuse
yes hugo, we know thats where your brain used to be,.

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