CARACAS, (Reuters) – A government official in Venezuela for the first time has raised the possibility that Hugo Chavez’s Jan. 10 inauguration could be delayed as the president struggles to recover from his latest cancer surgery.
Few details have been given about the 58-year-old leader’s condition after his fourth operation in 18 months. Officials say he is lucid, but that doctors treated unexpected bleeding and then a respiratory infection after last week’s procedure.
Comments by Congress leader Diosdado Cabello, a close ally of the president, suggest government officials may postpone the inauguration to accommodate Chavez’s recovery.
Any delay would outrage the opposition, which has insisted for months that Chavez officially hand over power while he convalesces in Cuba. The constitution says he should be sworn-in again on Jan. 10, but there are conflicting interpretations over what would happen if he is not.
“You can’t tie the will of the people to one date. If you didn’t do it that day, if it isn’t the tenth, doesn’t the will of eight million people count?” Cabello was quoted as saying by local media yesterday.
Cabello spoke after a Socialist Party news conference, insisting he was offering his personal opinion and not the “official position” of his party or the national assembly.
He said the assembly could ask the Supreme Court, widely believed to be under the thumb of Chavez allies, for a ruling on any possible postponement. He said in one case a mayor was given a three-month extension to their inauguration date. Cabello is the third most powerful figure in the government after Chavez’s heir apparent, Vice President Nicolas Maduro.
One constitutional law professor said Chavez’s inability to begin his third term on Jan. 10 would not automatically trigger new elections, as has been widely reported in media.
“The issue always ends up in a debate in parliament. It’s the whole assembly that will decide” through a majority vote if the president is no longer fit for office, said Jose Vicente Haro of the Universidad Catolica Andres Bello in Caracas.
‘RISK OF ANARCHY’
The confusion threatens to create an unruly transition to a post-Chavez government in the OPEC nation where the former soldier has vastly expanded presidential powers and built a near-cult following.
Opposition leaders decried Cabello’s comments as a sign the Socialist Party could fiddle with succession rules to accommodate the president’s recovery.
