Chavez infirmity has Venezuelan opposition sensing opportunity

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It's a movie we've seen before: a charismatic autocrat, attended by a cult of personality, uncharacteristically disappears from public view. A whirlwind of rumour ensues, suggesting that he is terminally ill.

The latest variation on this familiar theme is now playing out in Latin America. And, while its denouement remains unclear, the implications are potentially profound.

Depending on whom you believe, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is either recuperating nicely in Havana – from a minor procedure to remove a pelvic abscess – or dying of cancer.

Back home, the political opposition is jubilant, sensing an opportunity to loosen the tenacious Chavista grip on power.

One prominent Venezuelan journalist, citing medical sources in Miami, claimed Mr. Chavez is receiving treatment for prostate cancer. Other reports cited diverticulitis, a disease of the large intestine, and peritonitis, an inflammation of abdominal tissue.

The speculative frenzy gathered further momentum when Mr. Chavez's brother, Adan, hinted at insurrection if the ruling United Socialist Party were voted out of power. "It would be inexcusable to limit ourselves to only the electoral," he said, "and not see other forms of struggle, including armed struggle."

The caudillo's supporters, however, insist he is on the mend. "President Chavez is recovering well from his surgery," Vice-Foreign Minister Temir Porras said in a tweet. "May enemies cease daydreaming and friends cease being nervous."

Attempting to dampen the controversy, the government Tuesday released photos and a video of a thinner Mr. Chavez – wearing a track suit – in conversation with Fidel Castro, another Latin American leader about whom rumours of death have been greatly exaggerated, discussing headlines from Tuesday's edition of the Cuban Communist Party's daily Granma.

Indeed, most Venezuelans regard the official silence surrounding his condition as tactical, including Henrique Capriles Radonsky, the youthful Miranda state governor expected to lead the challenge against Mr. Chavez in the scheduled December, 2012, presidential election.

"There's been a great lack of information," Mr. Capriles wryly noted when the Chavez administration went uncharacteristically silent for two weeks after the president underwent unscheduled surgery on June 10. "And it looks deliberate."

Until then, scarcely a day had gone by when Mr. Chavez had not appeared on Venezuelan radio or TV, often delivering anti-American diatribes for hours at a time.

In fact, the consensus scenario had the 56-year-old Mr. Chavez staging a triumphant return next week, both to host the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States summit on Margarita Island, and to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Venezuela's independence from Spain on July 5.

But on Wednesday, the Venezuelan government announced it is postponing the summit of Latin American leaders to allow Mr. Chavez to convalesce.

In the meantime, the populist leader seems to be running his country via tweets from Cuba, the last leg of a three-nation visit that included Ecuador and Brazil. In recent days, his twitter@chavezcandanga account – it boasts some 1.6 million followers – has posted several tweets.

One saluted journalists on the anniversary of the birth of El Correo del Orinoco, a newspaper founded in 1819 by Simon Bolivar, hero of the revolution that liberated the country from Spanish rule.

Another applauded the current campaign to build new housing for 153,000 families in 2011. A third expressed his joy at receiving visits from his daughter, Rosines, his mother, Marisabel Rodriguez, and several grandchildren, who were flown to Cuba in an air force plane.

"It's absolutely incredible – it's rule by Twitter," said Juan Pablo Lupi, a Venezuelan émigré and professor of Spanish-American literature at the University of California. "How can you rule one country by tweeting from another country?"

Swept into power in 1998, Mr. Chavez has engineered a broad-based socialist revolution in Venezuela. In the past dozen years, he's nationalized dozens of industries, seized control of both the National Assembly and the judiciary, shut down opposition newspapers and TV stations and forced rivals into exile. He's also siphoned more than $60-billion from the cash reserves of Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the state oil company, to conduct sweeping changes in social policy.

Although the economy has bounced back slightly from a recent recession, capital – monetary and human – continues to flee. Billions of bolivars, the national currency, have been parked in banks abroad, accompanied by Latin America's highest level of brain drain – one of the world's worst – according to the World Economic Forum.

Even if Mr. Chavez reappears next week, some experts contend, his tough hombre persona will have sustained damage.

"His state of health may be all conjecture," allowed Leonardo Vivas, another Venezuelan émigré and co-ordinator of the Latin American Initiative at Harvard's Kennedy School. "But the prospects for the political opposition are better and better. The aura of invincibility has suffered – his many colds and flus, his bad left knee, and now this, whether it's an abscess or cancer. It affects the perception of him and also the conditions under which he can campaign."

"Vulnerable, yes," agreed Dr. Lupi. "But it would be a mistake to think he will lose the presidency. Remember, he still controls all the institutions and organs of power. The messianic will of one person, Chavismo, has penetrated to every level of life. He has mobilized myths that permeate Venezuelan culture. And outside the major cities, the opposition parties remain weak."

But Mr. Chavez has pointedly refrained from anointing a successor. If his health deteriorates, or he is forced to withdraw, nothing would be certain – the party's hold on power, Venezuela's role as a regional catalyst of socialism, its cozy relations with Cuba, its oil subsidies to neighbouring states.

Said Dr. Vivas: "If he can't run or is not allowed to, it will be very messy."

Doctor's orders

The health and well-being of world leaders has long been the subject of secrecy and intrigue. A few examples:

Ali Abdullah Saleh: After an explosion at his personal mosque amid persistent social unrest, descriptions of the Yemeni president's injuries ranged from superficial to grave. He gave a brief audio statement in which his speech was laboured, and left for Saudi Arabia for treatment. There have been daily pledges that he is still firmly in power, and will return imminently. Officials have said the President will soon make his first public appearance since the attack with a recorded message to be broadcast on Yemeni state television.

Russians: It was Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin who turned his health and that of his top aides into a closely guarded secret. When Stalin died in March, 1953, his aides, preparing for a fierce power struggle, delayed the official announcement by at least two days. It was only after Leonid Brezhnev died in November, 1982, that the country was told he had nearly all illnesses imaginable, even though people had openly laughed at his obvious decline over the years. And it took another 10 years for the Soviet people to learn that for at least the last seven years of his rule, Mr. Brezhnev had been little more than an imbecile hardly able to control himself – let alone the country. Yuri Andropov also died in office and it was only afterward that the country learned he had serious kidney problems and spent the last months of his rule in bed attached to an artificial kidney. The climax of secrecy over the Kremlin health list came in 1985, when Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko, wasted by emphysema, was forced to take part in a showpiece election just to pretend he was well.

Qin Shi Huang: When the first emperor of China died several weeks' travel from the capital, his aid feared that instability would follow and kept his death a secret as his caravan make the two-month journey back to the seat of power. His body started to decompose during the summer trip, and carts of rotting fish were carried alongside his carriage to mask the smell of decay lest it raise suspicions.

Sources: Reuters, AP, NYT