CARACAS, January 9 (Itar-Tass) — The National Assembly of Venezuela has granted a request made by Hugo Chavez for postponing his swearing-in until a later date. Parliament Speaker Diosdado Cabello said the leader of the Bolivarian revolution had been allotted any time that he would need to recover and return home.
So, Chavez will go ahead with medical treatment in Cuba. In the meantime his functions will be temporarily performed by Vice-President and Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro.
In October last year, Chavez won the regular presidential elections. However, early in December he told his fellow countrymen that he had to leave by air for Cuba again because he needed yet another surgical operation, a fourth one over the past 18 months. The operation was performed in Havana on December 11. The authorities said the operation continued for six hours and was attended with a complication in the form of bleeeding which the surgeons succeeded in stopping.
Following that, the government announced that the patient got an infection of respiratory ways. However, his condition was estimated as a "progressing process of stabilization". The authorities reported that Chavez was already able to walk about the hospital ward and was making exercises recommended by the attending physicians. However, it was later stated that the president developed "new post-operative complications in connection with the infection of respiratory ways".