President Chavez announces he has to undergo another operation

Tuesday, February 21st 2012 - 23:59 UTC

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

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.

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.