Chavez photos met with strong support
2013-02-16 14:06
Caracas - Supporters of President Hugo Chavez displayed
new confidence on Saturday after the government released the first
post-surgical photos of the ailing Venezuelan leader, in which he appears
bed-ridden but smiling in the company of his daughters.
The pictures show the 58-year-old Chavez lying on his
back in a Havana hospital and leafing through Thursday's edition of the
official Cuban newspaper Granma.
Chavez supporters rejoiced at the confirmation that the
president was alive.
The four images broke a virtual news blackout for
Venezuelans who have been living in limbo without their media-happy comandante -
a populist firebrand who is the most visible face of the Latin American left
and who has irked the US by aligning himself with Iran, Syria and Cuba.
For over two months Venezuelans had not seen a photo or
TV image of Chavez, nor heard the voice of a man usually omnipresent across
state media. Sketchy government updates about his health fuelled speculation he
was actually dead.
Chavez's absence has also enraged political opponents,
who have wondered aloud who is running Venezuela, which has the world's largest
proven oil reserves.
He was last seen as he left Caracas airport on 10 December
for treatment in Cuba.
On Thursday night, opposition leader Henrique Capriles
kept up his assertion that the government has probably been lying about
Chavez's health, suggesting the president is in worse shape than officials have
said he is.
Capriles expressed fresh anger over of the release of the
pictures and said they had not clarified the president's true health condition.
However, the pro-Chavez camp was jubilant to see their
hero, and could not resist a dig at the rumors simmering on social media that
Chavez was no more.
"Wow! For a dead man you look really good,
comandante," tweeted @mormaldonado.
"He's alive, he's alive! Thanks be to God and to the
whole world. This is proof," said Dora Salcedo, 67, one of dozens of
Chavez fans who gathered in downtown Caracas after the photos came out.
But Venezuelans apparently will have to wait longer for
the former commando to break his silence.
He has been fitted with a breathing tube in his throat,
making it hard for him to speak, Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said.
That's because of a respiratory infection that emerged
after the surgery. The infection has been brought under control but "the
underlying disease is not without complications," Villegas said in a
televised speech to the nation.
It was Chavez's son-in-law Jorge Arreaza, also science
minister, who showed the printed photos of Chavez on television.
"We wanted to share with you now some shots from
last night of our commander accompanied by his two daughters Rosa Virginia and
Maria Gabriela... yesterday on the day of friendship, on Valentine's Day,"
Arreaza said.
Savvy move
A leading political analyst here said it was a savvy move
by the government to publish the photos, even if Chavez appeared to be in a
somewhat debilitated state.
"It was the right move politically," said Luis
Vicente Leon, president of the firm Datanalisis.
The pictures are similar to each other, and show Chavez
with the daughters, one on either side of him, looking through the Cuban
newspaper. Chavez wears a white baseball-type jacket that goes up to his neck.
The breathing tube is not visible, with the leader laying back, his face puffy,
but smiling.
These pictures "put us at ease," Arreaza said
in a broadcast that all radio and TV stations were ordered to carry.
Chavez remains alert with all his mental faculties intact
and is "in close collaboration with his government team and on top off all
the issues" facing the government, Villegas said.
But Capriles reacted with scorn. He said that while just
a few days ago government officials who have been shuttling back and forth to
Havana said they had spoken to Chavez "now they say he cannot speak. They
are making a mockery of their own people," Capriles tweeted.
Ailing leader
Chavez was first diagnosed with cancer in 2011. After
surgery and treatment he declared himself free of the disease and went on to
win another term in elections last October.
But he suffered a relapse, and after the latest surgery
he was still too sick to come back to Venezuela for his scheduled inauguration
on 10 January.
It has been postponed indefinitely, and Vice President
Nicolas Maduro has essentially been running Venezuela.
Maduro used the occasion of the pictures' publication to
accuse the opposition of "trying to confuse the public" and
"destabilising" the country, with its strident criticism of the
president's prolonged absence.
The government has never said where Chavez's cancer is
located or how serious it was or is.
Opposition parties insist Chavez's term ended 10 January and
that if he cannot start a new one in person, an interim president should be
named pending a decision on whether Chavez should be declared incapacitated, in
which case a new election would be called quickly.
- SAPA
