Foreign politicians drawn into Venezuelan polls, minister calls Paraguay's leader scum

The candidates in Venezuela's 14 April presidential elections have begun to use some blunt talk that may yet become ruder even than words traded in the 2012 campaign between Henrique Capriles and Hugo Chávez. Rudeness was also evident in Venezuelan reactions to foreign politicians' recent comments about Venezuela and its leaders. On 4 April Venezuela's Foreign Minister said he was "obliged to respond" to comments made about Chávez by Paraguay's President Federico Franco, qualifying Franco as "human and political scum." Speaking on TeleSur, Jaua contrasted the late president's "moral and human stature" with "the human and political scum President Franco signifies," but regretted that Franco "is not the last human and political scum who will be able to offend and attack the memory of that historical giant," Europa Press reported. The two states have minimal ties, and Franco recently called Chávez's death a miracle. Another conservative critic of Venezuela was the former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe Vélez, who has several times accused Venezuela of backing Colombia's two communist guerrilla armies. He wrote on the website Twitter on 30 March that Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro had "raised the tone" by calling his opponents the "heirs of Adolf Hitler" and there was "no limit" to his cynicism; Maduro replied on Uribe's account, asking him if he should have called them "your heirs." Uribe then wrote that Maduro's "partners" - Colombia's communist FARC guerrillas - chain "hostages to wire fences like Hitler," Bogotá's Radio Santa Fe reported on 31 March. Foreign Minister Jaua praised Maduro's response to the "genocidal" Uribe, the website Noticia al Dia reported. Brazil's former president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva separately upset the Venezuelan opposition after stating support  for Maduro on 3 April. Lula told a Uruguayan daily that while not as charismatic as Chávez, Maduro was "an extraordinary human being...who I think is totally prepared" to govern as his predecessor, Globovisión reported. "I think he will win the elections and will govern," Lula said. The Venezuelan parliamentarian Maria Corina Machado called his "rude intervention" the next day "grotesque and unacceptable," and said Lula had become Maduro's "salesman" and "electoral agent." Machado is the foreign affairs spokeswoman on the Capriles election team. His comments Machado said, did not so much befit a former statesman as "a merchant." She said "someone who is unaware of the reality of our country and ignores the problems Venezuelans have to deal with every day has no right to state opinions. We wonder if Maduro has spoken to Lula of the dead taken to the morgues every day, the product of [crime] violence, under the complicit gaze of this government," Globovisión reported on 4 April. Venezuela's opposition has repeatedly accused the regime of neglecting the problem of crime.

Venezuelan leader says Hugo Chávez blessed him through a bird

In what is perhaps a modern, socialist, equivalent of an apotheosis, Venezuela's President and presidential candidate Nicolás Maduro has not shirked from linking his deceased predecessor to celestial affairs, first comparing his followers' grief for the death of Hugo Chávez to that of the Apostles for Christ, and now saying Chávez blessed him through "a tiny little bird" hovering over him on 1 or 2 April. This followed from a short cartoon he had placed on the Internet showing Chávez, who died of cancer in March, flying to Heaven as a bird, CNN reported on 2 April. Maduro made the comments on 2 April while addressing a crowd in the western district of Barinas at the start of the campaign for the 14 April elections. He said "a little bird" flew into a chapel where he was praying alone in the nearby district of Sabanetas, and flew three times above him, which he interpreted as a blessing from Chávez ahead of the polls, El Nacional reported. It seems however that credulity is not what it used to be, as the opposition candidate Henrique Capriles has accused him of lying several times in recent months. There were no immediate reports of his reacting to the claims although Capriles vowed on the website Twitter to shortly inform voters of an unspecified but "very grave" matter relating to the elections, Globovisión reported on 3 April. The candidates began moving around Venezuela as the short campaign period began; Capriles was in the eastern district of Maturín in Monagas on 2 April, although reported earlier as starting his campaign in Barinas where the presidential party was gathered. In Maturín he criticized again the regime's largesse with Venezuelan petrodollars, telling a crowd "you know how oil resources are given away...used to present ambulances and police patrol cars to other countries, and give them light bulbs. Is that because nothing is needed any more in any neighborhood of Monagas? I think a lot is missing," Globovisión reported on 2 April. Separately on 3 April, the conservative president of Paraguay - which cut ties with Venezuela in 2012 - said he considered Chávez's death "a miracle" for the harm he had done to Paraguay. Venezuela was one of several American countries to isolate Paraguay after parliament sacked its Leftist president, Fernando Lugo; Paraguay was notably excluded from regional trading blocks. Federico Franco Gómez told a business gathering at the Ritz hotel in Madrid that "for me it is a miracle Mr Chávez should have disappeared from the face of the earth...yes, because he greatly harmed my country...Paraguay is not a territory for Bolivarian ideas," Europa Press reported. He accused Chávez of complicity in killings and kidnappings for having given asylum to a small militant group, the Paraguayan People's Army (El Ejército del Pueblo Paraguayo). Paraguay is to hold general elections in April 2013.

Venezuela swears in acting leader, elections called

After heads of state paid their respects on 8 March to Venezuela's late President Hugo Chávez, his designated successor and former vice-president Nicolás Maduro Moros took the oath as Acting President and immediately instructed election authorities to call general elections as the constitution demands, to allow Venezuelans to "know democratically who their President will be." He resigned as vice-president as laws required, and appointed the Science and Technology Minister Jorge Arreaza, son-in-law of the late president, as Executive Vice-President. Maduro asked the National Electoral Council (CNE) to implement "corresponding evaluations" before setting a date for general elections, and urged the opposition to present its candidates, Venezuela's state news agency AVN reported. The opposition politician and governor of the state of Miranda Henrique Capriles Radonsky had earlier objected to Maduro becoming a candidate while remaining Executive Vice-President, calling this an abuse of authority; he observed at a press conference on 8 March that the people would give their opinion at the polls on "how they have used the death of President Hugo Chávez for electoral and propaganda purposes," El Universal reported. An unspecified number of people were heard to have started banging pots and pans - this being one of the forms in which Latin Americans like to protest - on balconies in Caracas, in an apparent and anticipated objection to Maduro's inauguration as Acting President, Spain's ABC reported. Earlier that day some 30 heads of state gathered to pay their respects to the late president, at a ceremony in the Military Academy in Caracas where Chávez's body was on display in a glass casket. The dignitaries included the presidents of Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Cuba, as well as prominent friends and admirers like the former Colombian senator Pilar Córdoba, who wept before the coffin and was comforted by Maduro and the late president's daughter. She has intermittently played the role of an intermediary between Venezuela, Colombia and FARC guerrillas, facilitating the release of certain hostages in Colombia.

Venezuelans comment interim presidency's legality

Constitutional lawyers and opposition politicians pointed out on 7 March that Venezuela's acting president Nicolás Maduro Moros, who many expect will seek election as successor to Hugo Chávez, could not legally and simultaneously be acting president, Vice-President and presidential candidate. Elections were expected within a month but a jurist told the broadcaster Globovisión on 7 March that these may be postponed by days or weeks. Juan Manuel Rafalli told Globovisión that to run for the presidency Maduro would either have to appoint a vice-president or the Supreme Court would have to make a pertinent ruling. It was perhaps unlikely that the court, which had stated nothing so far, would make an obstructive ruling. Certain opposition politicians observed earlier that the parliamentary speaker should legally have taken over the interim presidency with the President's "absolute" absence, and parliament should have convened an extraordinary session. On this the jurist Gerardo Blyde told the daily El Nacional that Article 33 of the constitution permitted the Executive Vice-President to "take charge" of the presidency if the President was no longer in office, interpreting this as distinct from "becoming president," Europa Press reported. He said this meant he remained Vice-President while exercising presidential duties and that pursuant to the Constitution's Article 229 could not also be a candidate. The opposition Table of Democratic Unity (Mesa de Unidad Democrática, MUD) observed separately that election laws prevented Maduro from running for the presidency as an acting rather than an elected president. That law they stated required public servants running for an elected office to resign their positions from the first day of the campaign, Europa Press reported. A member of the MUD secretariat Ramón José Medina said in turn that the opposition agreed elections could be held 45 or 60 days after the presidential demise rather than 30, given conditions, Globovisión and EFE reported on 7 March. Three names Medina cited as possible presidential aspirants for the MUD coalition were Henrique Capriles Radonsky, the candidate who failed to win the presidency in October 2012, the mayor of Caracas Antonio Ledezma and the legislator María Corina Machado.

Venezuela mourns its president

Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez Frías died on 5 March, succumbing to a recurring, aggressive cancer he had fought with resilience and the help of a panoply of often painful treatments including surgeries. He was effectively  hidden from the public following his last surgery in December 2012, confined to hospital beds in Havana then Caracas, while officials urged Venezuelans to pray for the President's recovery. His death was announced by the Executive Vice-President Nicolás Maduro Moros who observed - visibly distressed - that Chávez "put up a hard fight" against cancer for two years. Authorities declared seven days of mourning in Venezuela, while "thousands" came onto the streets in a public display of grief, Europa Press reported. On 6 March his body was taken from hospital to the Military Academy in Caracas where a state ceremony was scheduled for 8 March, attended by heads of state. The presidents of Bolivia, Argentina and Uruguay were already in Caracas that day, La Nación reported, while Argentina, Cuba and Chile declared three days of mourning and Bolivia, a week, EFE reported. Latin American leaders promptly expressed sympathy and sadness, perhaps with greater sincerity than elsewhere given the personal relations Chávez forged with many regional politicians and for having become a familiar figure of television and radio across the Hispanic world. Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff said a "great Latin American" had died and one who had been "very generous with all those who needed him on this continent," Europa Press reported on 5 March. El Salvador's President Mauricio Funes described Chávez in a message as "one of the strongest and most popular Latin American leaders" who "changed the...inequality and exclusion" Venezuelans had "suffered before he took power" in 1998, Venezuela's state news agency reported. Vice-President Maduro was expected to become Venezuela's acting leader and elections were to be called within 30 days, Argentina's La Nación reported on 6 March.

Hugo Chávez returns to Venezuela, taken to hospital

Venezuela's ailing President Hugo Chávez Frías returned to Caracas early on 18 February after weeks of treatment and care in Cuba following surgery for cancer on 11 December; he was taken to a military hospital for further rest and care, the Venezuelan state news agency reported. The return was announced by a comment appearing on the president's personal page on the website Twitter. Chávez thanked Cuba and its two leaders, President Raul Castro and his brother Fidel Castro, for their hospitality but also Venezuelans for "so much love;" he assured them "I am holding onto Christ and keep my trust in my doctors and nurses." The country's acting leader Vice-President Nicolás Maduro Moros, called Chávez an example of a "permanent battle" and urged Venezuelans to pray for him "with the heart," the agency reported. The president's absence has fuelled political tensions between the socialist government and liberal opposition parties, which have criticized the lack of clear information on the president's health and the prolongation of a de facto regime. The leading opposition politician and governor of the northern state of Miranda also wrote on Twitter that he hoped the president's return was permanent and would prompt his government to start working to solve Venezuela's problems, El Nacional reported on 18 February. He wrote that he hoped the return of Chávez would end the "red package" or economic policies opposition forces allege are being dictated from communist Cuba.

Venezuelan officials discern plotting by "Far Right"

The Venezuelan Interior Minister warned vaguely on 24 January that the country's "extreme Right" and foreign accomplices were plotting against senior state officials and that security agencies had been alerted; he was one of several officials who echoed allegations made the day before by the Vice-President Nicolás Maduro Moros that "infiltrators" were plotting possibly to kill him and the parliamentary Speaker Diosdado Cabello Rondón. The country's director of public prosecutions (Fiscal-general) warned that the state would take "necessary actions" against elements who would "destabilize" Venezuela in the absence of the President Hugo Chávez Frías. Chávez is said to be recovering from cancer surgery in Havana, although Liberal and conservative opponents have criticized his prolonged absence and the Maduro government's refusal to provide information on his state. The Interior Minister Néstor Reverol denounced the "plotters" for calling Maduro and Cabello "bus driver" and "little lieutenant," presumably in a bid to discredit them publicly or on the Internet. Cabello was in the army and Maduro a bus driver as a young man, though it was not clear if the nicknames were a part of the plots. "Yesterday it was necessary to report another destabilizing plan by the Venezuelan extreme Right in complicity with actors of the far Right abroad," El Universal cited Reverol as saying. He told the Governor of the state of Miranda, the former presidential aspirant Henrique Capriles, to stop talking about crime in the country seeing as "Miranda is the entity with most criminal incidents in all the country...homicides increased 65 per cent in your administration, robbery increased 35 per cent...kidnapping 480 per cent. And you are talking about security policies?" Capriles is the governor of Miranda since 2008. The higher-education minister Yadira Córdova suggested on state television that day that "destabilizing plans" may take the form of student protests. The head of the Public Ministry - the state prosecution service - Luisa Ortega Díaz in turn told radio that the Ministry had named a prosecutor to investigate the plot against the "physical integrity" of Maduro and Cabello by "sectors" she said "disrespect" officials and "seek to destabilize" Venezuela, the broadcaster Globovisión reported. Vice-President Maduro arrived in Havana on 24 January to visit the President and seek "decisions" on unspecified issues, Europa Press reported.

Venezuelan court allows delayed presidential oath

The Constitutional Hall of the Supreme Court of Venezuela ruled on 9 January that the ailing President Hugo Chávez did not have to take the oath of office for another presidential term on 10 January as required - given his physical incapacity - and this was a formality not affecting the "administrative continuity" in the country. Chávez was re-elected as president last October but remains in hospital in Cuba following surgery for cancer last December; the country was being run by a cabinet headed by his vice-president and foreign minister, Nicolás Maduro. Parliament voted on 8 January to allow his absence during treatment, while opponents urged the Supreme Court to declare whether or not this was legal. The court's President Luisa Estella Morales Lamuño declared that while a new constitutional period began on 10 January, "another swearing-in as President-elect is not necessary as there is no interruption in exercising his office...this is a re-elected president, the...re-election is to do with approval of his management," El Universal reported. She said he was outside Venezuela "for his health," with parliament's permission and in keeping with Article 235 of the constitution; that article stipulates that parliament must authorise a presidential absence in Venezuela if this is for more than five days. She said there could be no date now for when Hugo Chávez would be sworn into office, but this would surely happen once he was cured of cancer.

Venezuelan parliament postpones president's oath

Parliament voted on 8 December to allow President Hugo Chávez Frías to formally take office before the Supreme Court after the official date of 10 January, given his physical incapacity to attend a ceremony in Venezuela for now. The Speaker of the National Assembly Diosdado Cabello Rondón told parliament that the 10 January date was not as opposition members alleged "immovable" and there were precedents for a president's late inauguration. The President he said now had "all the time he needs to recover and return to Venezuela" once cured of his illness, El Universal reported. He said addressing the opposition coalition that the government was functioning and the socialist regime united, "only the opposition is not functioning...the day something happens, [the vice-president] Nicolás [Maduro] and I will be here together. I don't know if you will all be together." Cabello was sworn in as Speaker on 5 January for 2012-13; he expressed satisfaction at the 8 January session that no opposition legislators had been included in the parliamentary presidium, as "there would surely have been a coup." A lawyer and constitutional specialist separately told Globovisión, a broadcaster critical of the regime, that he considered the vote "contrary to the constitution" and inapplicable beyond 10 January when the present constitutional period ended. José Vicente Haro said the acting president Nicolás Maduro and ministers should step down on 10 January, after which date they could be no more than a de facto government, Globovisión reported. Venezuela's Prosecutor-General Luisa Ortega Díaz was however cited as saying that day that a new constitutional period was not to be confused with a presidential mandate. She said "the mandate is one thing and the constitutional period another," and "the President can thus not take office on 10 January," Globovisión reported. She said parliament should however convene that day to start the new constitutional period. Hugo Chávez was elected to a new presidential term on 7 October. Ortega said that in spite of his resurgent illness and temporary absence, there had been no "power vacuum" in Venezuela as the opposition alleged.

Presidential absence fuels tensions in Venezuela

Hugo Chávez Frías was to be sworn into a new presidential term in Caracas on 10 January but it was very unlikely he would, as he reportedly remained under close medical care following surgery for cancer in December. Opposition forces in Caracas have increasingly urged Venezuela''s socialist regime to inform Venezuelans of the president's state but also respect constitutional stipulations in case of the president's unexpected incapacity. The opposition's position was that the current parliamentary speaker,  Diosdado Cabello, was to take over provisionally and prepare for general elections. The Democratic Coalition Table (MUD, Mesa de Unidad Democrática) wrote to the Organization of American States (OAS) to state its concern about the "alteration of the constitutional order" if this did not happen on 10 January, posing it stated a threat to the "democratic order," Agence France-Presse reported on 8 January. Officials have said Chávez could be sworn in later as this was merely a formality; the country was currently administered by the Vice-President and Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro. The MUD wrote there is "absolutely no room for the interpretation that would alllow the...act to be postponed to an unspecified time." The governor of the state of Miranda and former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles separately told a press conference on 8 January that the Supreme Court must clarify the correct interpretation of who should be president on 10 January and the matter could not be left to the government. He said "I don't know what the magistrates...are waiting for. A conflict is presently being envisaged in Venezuela that is undoubtedly constitutional; institutional bodies must respond to this conflict," Globovisión reported. It was not immediately clear where he was speaking. "The country is expecting a way out...a clear interpretation of what this constitutional text says," he said, holding out a booklet before his audience. He asked American presidents not to come on 10 January and fuel the "political game" inside Venezuela, meaning attend a ceremony where Chávez was absent. Capriles wondered aloud why officials were not telling Venezuelans about the president's condition 48 hours before his inauguration, and implied they were lying in this respect. He could not understand he said why they found it "so difficult to speak truthfully," however "harsh" that truth was.

Venezuelans pray for ailing leader's recovery

At the close of 2012 many Venezuelans prayed for the recovery of President Hugo Chávez Frías, apparently in a fragile state following a recent operation for a recurring cancer, while officials issued messages to dismiss rumours of his deterioration. Venezuela's Science Minister Jorge Arreaza Monserrat wrote on the website Twitter that the president had spent "a quiet and stable day in the company of his children" on 31 December and Venezuelans should disbelieve "malicious rumours" to the contrary. On 30 or 31 December, an oecumenical mass was held at a church in Caracas for Chávez, while residents gathered in the Plaza Bolívar to sing for the president, the state news agency AVN reported. Chávez followed the service on television from Cuba where he was operated, according to the Venezuelan communications minister Ernesto Villegas; on 30 December he urged unspecified critics not to "play" with the president's health by spreading rumours on websites like Twitter. It seemed improbable that Chávez could return to Venezuela to be officially sworn in for another presidential term on 10 January as scheduled; Vice-President Nicolás Maduro most recently described his physical state as "delicate." The Colombian broadcaster Caracol separately cited a physician José Rafael Marquina as saying that the recent surgery had been an "absolute failure" and that "Cuba does not have enough experience to treat" the president's "unusual cancer;" he said he believed Chávez was "very probably" living his "last days." It was not immediately clear if Marquina's assertions were based on reliable information, but Caracol described him as "known" to have previously revealed "privileged information" on the president's health. He told Caracol on 31 December that he did not believe rumours of Venezuelan officials concealing the president's death while preparing opinion for the news, observing that already "the country and the world are prepared for the death of Chávez."

Venezuelan officials cautious on president's health

Venezuela's acting president Nicolás Maduro told a gathering outside Caracas on 13 December that President Hugo Chávez had gone from a "stable to favourable" state as he recovered in Cuba from his fourth operation for a cancer first diagnosed in 2011; he stated however that Chávez previously instructed officials to prepare Venezuelans for "any circumstance." Both he and Venezuela's information minister have spoken of the operation's complexity and of unforeseen bleeding that had required "corrective measures," partly divulging the relevant medical reports. Maduro was speaking at a rally to close the campaign of Tareck El-Aissami, the socialist candidate to become governor of the northern state of Aragua west of the capital, Venezuela's El Universal reported. Venezuela was holding elections state governments on 16 December. He praised Chávez who he said had made Venezuelans better people than they were "five years ago or 10, and our country is infinitely better than 15, 20" or 100 years before. Individualism he said had given way to "humanism" under Chávez, and "when humanity lives socialism, it will live in the Kingdom of Heaven as Chávez has said...we are living a miracle right in the 21st century." Allusions to the other world may have been disconcerting to some, given the uncertainty over the president's health. El Universal cited the country's Information Minister Ernesto Villegas Poljak as commenting that given complications, a "time of caution" was needed before the president could be described as recovering. The former liberal presidential candidate and governor of the state of Miranda Henrique Capriles was reported on 14 December as objecting to what he said was Venezuelan officials' electoral usage of "a person's pain," while expressing sympathy for Chávez. Elections for state governors he said, had "nothing to do with the president's health, so enough of manipulating our people," for whom he asked for more "respect," the Colombian broadcaster Caracol reported.

Venezuela's Chávez recovering from surgery

Venezuela's acting president Nicolás Maduro announced on state television that President Hugo Chávez had successfully received cancer surgery in Havana on 11 December and was in recovery; Venezuelans would be informed of his physical progress in coming days, Venezuela's state news agency cited him as saying. He said doctors had informed officials who accompanied Chávez to Havana of the "complex" six-hour surgery carried out; these included the speaker of Venezuela's parliament, the prosecutor-general and the science and oil ministers who Maduro said "are like daughters and sons to Chávez more than politicians." He thanked Latin American leaders and officials who had sent expressions of support, but apparently said nothing about a similar statement by the US State Department in recent days. Maduro also urged the "adversaries, opponents and even enemies of our fatherland, and above all those who are Venezuelans, who exude their hate and venom every day: stop it, stop this poison, stop the hate against" Chávez. Maduro urged an extensive voter participation in regional elections scheduled for 16 December.

Hugo Chávez stirs emotions, sympathies in illness

Moved to tears by his own words or by circumstances, Venezuela's acting president Nicolás Maduro reiterated in public on 10 December the enduring loyalty of Venezuelans to President Hugo Chávez, who was in Cuba for treatment of a resurgent cancer. Maduro was shown speaking to a crowd of supporters, many also in tears, at the inauguration of a cable-car line in Caracas; on 8 December Chávez handed him his powers for his "temporary absence," though opposition politicians were demanding by 10 December that the public be told of the president's state of health. Certain opposition members, and the US State Department, urged that constitutional provisions be respected in case of a power transition, Globovisión reported on 10 December. This meant general elections must be called if Chávez were unable to return to work. Vice-President Maduro prayed for recovery however and said "Chávez has a people, he has us and will have us for ever in this battle from victory to victory," EFE reported. Messages of encouragement and sympathy were emitted by American governments of all persuasions; Ecuador's Rafael Correa was visiting him in Cuba. In Argentina, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner recalled speaking in Buenos Aires in 9 December that Chávez had helped "Argentina when nobody was helping it," and asked God to "give him back" his health, Venezuela's El Universal reported. The daily observed on 11 December that the illness was of particular concern to Nicaragua's Sandinista regime, a recipient of generous financial help from Venezuela since 2007.