Venezuela’s top opposition leader is asking why President Hugo Chavez hasn’t spoken publicly in more than two months while undergoing cancer treatment in Cuba.
Henrique Capriles questioned the president’s long silence at a news conference on Thursday, a day after the vice president provided a new vaguely worded update saying Chavez is undergoing “extremely complex and tough” treatments in Cuba.
Capriles asked why, if a president can sign documents to approve measures such as a newly enacted devaluation, “he’s not going to be able to speak to the country.”
The opposition leader said that if Chavez doesn’t appear publicly, “then they’re lying. Then it isn’t true that the president talks and signs. You’re forging (his) signature. You’re all lying to Venezuelans using the president’s signature to justify all the awful things you’re doing.”
The 58-year-old president underwent surgery on December 11 for an undisclosed type of pelvic cancer. Since then, the government has provided regular updates, though there have been fewer updates in recent weeks.
Officials including Vice President Nicolas Maduro and others have travelled repeatedly to Havana, and Maduro has shown documents signed by Chavez on television.