Govt accused of making ‘bald-faced lies’ over Chavez

CARACAS: The government is flatout lying to its people about cancerstricken President Hugo Chavez’s health, the country’s leading opposition figure charged.

“The people are being told baldfaced lies about the situation the president is in,” Henrique Capriles, who lost last October’s presidential race to Chavez, said at a ceremony in Miranda state of which he is governor.

Longtime leader Chavez, 58, is convalescing from cancer surgery in Cuba and has not been heard from since his latest operation Dec 11.

The government has said the absent leader suffered a lung infection following his treatment that he subsequently conquered. Officials have also said Chavez was signing documents and even cracking jokes with aides.

For many Venezuelans, however, the idea of Chavez – a garrulous and bombastic leader who typically is seen for several hours at a time every day, without fail, on state radio and television, in addition to being a big Twitter user – choosing to be silent is simply unthinkable.

“The government is lying right in your face, telling bald-faced lies, because why would a person who can sign letters, who can tell jokes, not speak to the nation?” Capriles asked in damning tone.

Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said Chavez was making progress in his recovery from cancer surgery but faced a tough battle ahead.

On Saturday, Vice-President Nicolas Maduro said Chavez had entered a phase of “complementary treatment to combat his illness”.

Maduro, Chavez’s handpicked political heir, did not say if that meant more radiation therapy, chemotherapy or some alternative cancer care and no date was given for when the president will return to Caracas. — AFP