Chavez, recovering from cancer, vows to run for reelection

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told supporters Monday that his battle with cancer would not stop him from running for another term next year, adding that he was “absolutely sure” voters would reelect him.

“I am the candidate of the revolution,” Chavez said, speaking by phone to a group of his backers after returning from medical treatment in Cuba.

Chavez underwent surgery in June in Havana to remove an abscess and a tumor. Although he has not specified the kind of cancer he has, speculation is that it is either colon or prostate cancer.

The president returned to Cuba on July 17 to undergo a “rigorous screening,” which he said detected no sign of the disease in his body. As a precaution, he decided to undergo chemotherapy.

Chavez returned in time to mark the July 24 birthday of Simon Bolivar, Chavez’s idol and Venezuela’s equivalent of George Washington. He ordered Bolivar’s remains be exhumed from the national pantheon a year ago in an effort to determine his cause of death, and he spoke to supporters as a report was presented on the investigation.

Chavez said he didn’t think Bolivar died of tuberculosis in Colombia in 1830, as most historians believe, but that he was murdered.

He gave no hint as to when he would return to Cuba for more treatment, saying he intended to be in Venezuela for his birthday Thursday. He will turn 57.

Despite his assurances that he will run for reelection, analysts have predicted a power struggle if the former army colonel’s health worsens. Gonzalo Garcia Ordonez, a retired general, predicted in an interview published Monday that the main rivals to succeed him would come from the armed forces and from among Chavez’s radical supporters.

Chavez has avoided giving specifics about his illness because it could cause a “stampede in the ranks of his followers” and bring internal rivalries out into the open, said Ordonez, who is a former commander of Venezuela’s equivalent of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Special correspondents Mogollon reported from Caracas and Kraul from Bogota.