Hugo Chávez silence fuels fears of power vacuum in Venezuela

President has gone uncharacteristically quiet as he recovers from surgery in Cuba, prompting rumours over his health and warnings of instability

guardian.co.uk, Tom Phillips and Virginia Lopez in Caracas, Wednesday 22 June 2011

Hugo Chávez talks to the former Cuba president Fidel Castro last Friday,
one of only two appearances from the Venezuela president since he was
admitted to hospital on 10 June. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

He is famed as one of the most verbose leaders on earth, a media-obsessed commander-in-chief whose adrenaline-filled speeches often stretch deep into the night.

But recent weeks have seen Hugo Chávez fall silent, as the Venezuelan president recovers from emergency hip surgery in Cuba. His uncharacteristic quietness has fuelled a flurry of speculation and criticism back home.

Since being admitted to hospital in Cuba on 10 June, Chávez has made just two public appearances, showing up last Friday in four photographs alongside the Cuban president, Raúl Castro, and his brother Fidel, and popping up on 12 June for a telephone interview with Venezuela's Telesur television network.

Normally a prolific tweeter, Chávez's Twitter profile – @chavezcandanga – has not been used since 4 June.

More than 1.6m Chávez followers are missing the president's 140-character musings on anything from football results to the activities of Venezuela's state-controlled oil firm, "the most revolutionary oil company in the world".

Even an explosive outbreak of prison violence and a growing power crisis have failed to stir Venezuela's convalescing president, prompting criticism from the opposition, a spate of online rumours and a fierce reaction from supporters who accuse detractors of launching opportunistic attacks on a sick man.

"Such poor, scarce and ambiguous medical updates inevitably trigger rumours that go from liposuction to improve his figure to a back problem that will hinder his ability to campaign, or even a more serious illness," wrote Luis Vicente León, a columnist for the opposition El Universal, on Sunday.

León rejected the idea that Chávez's absence had created a "power vacuum", but complained of a "vacuum of respect for Venezuelans, their traditions and their symbols".

Mystery around Chávez's extended absence briefly thickened on Monday night when one international news agency picked up on a supposed Chávez tweet, in which the Venezuelan leader apparently admitted: "My illness is more complicated than we thought."

Fifteen minutes later, however, the agency retracted its story; the Twitter account was a fake.

Supporters of Chávez, who will run for a third presidential term in elections next year, have reacted angrily to criticism of their hospitalised leader.

Cilia Flores, an MP from Chávez's United Socialist party, last week accused opponents of acting "like vampires and vultures trying to see what they can fish from troubled waters".

In a text message to the Guardian on Wednesday, Venezuela's information minister, Andrés Izarra, said Chávez was "recovering well" but denied rumours that he would return to Caracas in the coming days.

Since taking power in 1999, the president has reportedly interrupted normal television programming 2,135 times to address his nation.

A briefing by London-based thinktank Latin News said: "In the glaring absence of any official comment, there is wild speculation as to what exactly is afflicting President Chávez. The government's silence about the president's condition and his expected return date is … bad form."

"It is absurd that the president can sign documents from Cuba," said Robert Bottome, from the Caracas-based consultancy VenEconomy, warning that Chávez's absence could trigger a messy scramble for power in Venezuela. "By disrespecting the constitution,we are leaving the door open to serious turmoil," he said.

Leopoldo Lopez, a prominent Chávez opponent and leader of the Popular Will party, said the furore over the president's stay in Havana was a distraction from more pressing issues.

"The discussion should centre on the key problems that affect millions of Venezuelans with regard to security, the high cost of living, employment and public services. For me, this should be the debate," he said.

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