MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bocaranda, the gossip columnist who keeps Venezuela informed on Hugo Chavez

In a country of rumours, Bocaranda, the ‘despicable rat’ is king

Some Venezuelans cannot get enough of Nelson Bocaranda, a mild-mannered radio reporter and gossip columnist who has been dishing up inside information on President Hugo Chavez’s cancer.

While the government has said little about the president’s ordeal, Bocaranda’s dribs and drabs, via Twitter, a Web site and a newspaper column, have revealed major developments. That has infuriated officials who say the author of the “Murmurs” column in El Universal is destabilizing the country ahead of an October presidential election that Chavez has vowed to win despite his illness.

“Despicable rat,” Mario Silva, the caustic host of “The Razor” on state television, said of Bocaranda.

“Perhaps someone pays him to write his lies?” asked Diosdado Cabello, the president of the National Assembly.

Andres Izarra, the government’s information minister, called Bocaranda’s revelations part of a “psychological war, a war of rumours,” and said that Chavez has dealt with the situation “with total transparency.”

And to a degree, the president has, telling the nation he had a tumour removed in June in Cuba, followed by chemotherapy. Chavez also announced he had been cured of cancer — until a recurrence sent him back to Cuba for a third surgery that took place on Feb. 26.

On Friday, 19 days later, Chavez returned to Venezuela, sounding optimistic about a future that includes a challenging re-election campaign against a young and spirited opposition candidate, Henrique Capriles.

“I am going to live, we are going to live, we are going to continue to overcome,” said Chavez, 57, in a half-hour address televised nationwide.

Bocaranda, though, said the government has revealed little, noting that Chavez still has not said what kind of tumour he had or where it was located. He said the president’s health is fair game, explaining that Chavez is an omnipresent figure who controls all Venezuelan institutions.

“This is a man who is the whole government, the man who has the whole congress, the whole supreme court, everything, all the powers,” Bocaranda, 66, who wears heavy glasses and slicks his grey hair back, said in an interview after his nightly radio show. “I think that is why his health is most important for us.”

With only Chavez himself releasing information about his cancer, the country has become rife with rumours as Venezuelans argue over whether the president will be able to carry out a gruelling campaign schedule.

“I think this is classic,” said Luis Vicente Leon, a pollster and political analyst. “When a society faces a vacuum of information over an issue that is relevant, then it fills the vacuum with rumours.”

But if you want to get some information on what is going on, some say, they closely read Bocaranda.

In June, he was the first to reveal that Chavez had cancer, which the president confirmed days later in a dramatic televised speech. Then, in the early morning hours of Feb. 20, Bocaranda issued a series of tweets reporting a recurrence of cancer, which Chavez confirmed the next day.

That last scoop generated 80,000 more followers to @NelsonBocaranda, where he now has nearly 570,000 readers.

Bocaranda said he uses five phones and 10 SIM cards, as well as his BlackBerry, e-mail and old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting, to collect information from sources. He has said his sources are in Cuba and suggested some are close to the president.