Venezuela Military Chief Says Chavez Remains In Charge Despite Cancer

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez remains in charge of the nation and its military and is likely to return soon after admitting to having undergone surgery to remove a cancerous tumor, a top military official said Friday.

The military will also continue to uphold the country’s constitution, military chief Henry Rangel Silva said during an interview on state television, the latest effort by Venezuelan officials to dismiss any talk of divisions within the ruling party which has been dominated by Chavez for the last 12 years.

Rangel said Chavez’s address late Thursday, in which the socialist leader admitted he had cancer but failed to give a timeline on his return from Cuba or specific details on his diagnosis, showed that “we have commandante Chavez in the same sense of responsibility. There are people that pretend that he is going to leave and we can’t fall into that game” of spouting ‘alarmist news,’ Rangel said, adding that Chavez is recovering ‘satisfactorily.’

Chavez’s comments ended nearly three weeks of speculation over the severity of the president’s health. He has stayed out of the public eye since June 10 and has been undergoing treatment in Cuba under heavy secrecy.

Government leaders hit the airwaves immediately after the address to assure the country that Chavez’s absence would not indicate any reversal in the socialist policies that he has spearheaded during his time in office.

Still, some analysts say that uncertainty over Chavez’s future could expose fractions within the Chavista movement as no obvious successor to president exists within the party.

The latest developments may “open a period of unprecedented social and political uncertainty in Venezuela,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) economist Alberto Ramos said in a note to investors. There are chances for ‘significant frictions’ between major leaders, namely between the dogmatic and more practical wings of the party, Ramos said. “The political chess board may witness a rapid succession of potentially politically and socially noisy moves over the next few months,” he added.