Senior allies of Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez have dismissed reports he is sicker than the government has admitted, telling his enemies to “stop dreaming” of his death.
The normally verbose leader has not been seen in public since a June 10 operation in Cuba to remove a pelvic swelling. His long absence has prompted widespread speculation he may be seriously ill, possibly being treated for prostate cancer.
Accusing opponents of cynically rejoicing at his health problems, government officials insist Chavez, 56, is fine and that he should be back for a regional summit planned for Venezuela’s 200th anniversary of independence on July 5.
“President Chavez is recovering well from his surgery. His enemies should stop dreaming and his friends should stop worrying,” Vice Foreign Minister Temir Porras said on the social networking site Twitter.
“The only thing that has metastasized is the cancer of the Miami Herald and the rest of the right-wing press.”
A report in the Nuevo Herald, the Miami Herald’s Spanish-language sister paper, on Saturday cited unnamed US intelligence officials as saying Chavez was in “critical condition” at a hospital in Havana.
A senior US official cast doubt on that report, telling Reuters that Washington was hearing lots of speculation about Chavez’s health but had no firm intelligence. “The fact is, we just don’t know,” the official said.
Fernando Soto Rojas, a Chavez ally who heads the National Assembly, said the president would be back before the summit scheduled for July 5-6 on Margarita island off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast. “Chavez is recuperating and we will have him here, thank God, on July 5,” he told reporters on Sunday.