But nine days after Chavez publicly announced that Cuban doctors had removed a tumor, it remains unclear how active or effective the 56-year-old president will be.
A political insider who has been in contact with Chavez’s close associates said in an interview that the president had colon cancer but would not be undergoing chemotherapy in the short term.
Chavez has referred to his illness as “one of life’s ambushes,” and he has spoken about the “very difficult” hours after Fidel Castro told him in Havana last month that he had a malignant tumor. But he has not confirmed what kind of cancer nor discussed the prognosis, and it is also unclear whether he will return regularly to Cuba, Venezuela’s closest ally, for treatment.
Meanwhile, the hard realities of Venezuela today — a country rocked by drug-fueled violence, a struggling economy in the midst of a long oil boom, rolling electrical blackouts and a polarized political landscape — are underscoring the limitations of Chavez’s dominating one-man rule as his movement prepares for next year’s presidential election.
Jose Albornoz, once a close ally of Chavez, said that some of the president’s lieutenants are trying to shift toward a more radical line as everything from poorly run schools to faltering agricultural production exposes government incompetence and inefficiencies.
“The lack of effective governance leads to authoritarianism,” Albornoz said. A former lawmaker who in 2002 was among those who helped restore Chavez to power after a brief coup, Albornoz said Chavez’s fears of being unseated prevent him from delegating.
“The president does not confide in anybody — because of his own history, because of the conspiracies he has been involved in,” said Albornoz, who is secretary-general of the Fatherland for All Party.
Deputies at odds
Architect of a failed military uprising in 1992, Chavez relies on a coterie of ideologically driven men, many of whom have been with him since before he took office in 1999.
Though outwardly loyal to him, they come from different political currents, sometimes at odds with one another and sometimes beholden to different bases of support.
They include Elias Jaua, the vice president, who got his start as a university agitator; Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader; Rafael Ramirez, who controls the state oil company; and Diosdado Cabello, a tough disciple of the president who has served in various posts.
Less popular and lacking in charisma is the president’s older brother, Adan, who is considered a careful planner ideologically committed to upending Venezuela’s economic structure. Another powerful figure comes from the military, General Henry Rangel Silva, whom the U.S. Treasury Department in 2008 accused of assisting Colombian armed groups in their drug-trafficking operations.
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