Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, has delegated some powers to his vice-president and the finance minister, a day after announcing he will return to Cuba to begin a new phase of cancer treatment.Shortly after a legislative vote approving his trip, Chavez announced on Saturday that he would hand off some responsibilities.
"I am going to delegate some decisions that until now were mine, signatures and decisions, to vice president Elias Jaua and Jorge Giordani," he said during a televised cabinet meeting.
Opponents say it is impossible for Chavez to effectively govern the OPEC nation of 29 million people from a Cuban hospital bed.
"When the president leaves the country, the vice-president must assume the chief executive role. It is their duty," said Hiram Gaviria, an opposition politician.
"The health of the country must be put above the president's health. We must be serious. We believe he should not hold office from Havana," added Carlos Berrizbeitia, another opposition politician.
Chavez, 56, has rebuffed calls from the opposition to hand over temporarily the presidency to Jaua, but gave him and Jorge Giordani, the finance minister, powers that include budgetary matters.
The president, who had a large tumour removed last month in Cuba, said on Friday he was going back to Havana to begin what "we've called the second phase". It will include chemotherapy.
Brain mets? Lung mets? Bone mets?
He announced his plans on Friday after meeting Ollanta Humala, the Peruvian president-elect.
Earlier this month, Chavez admitted in a television address that he had a tumour but had undergone a successful operation in Cuba to extract the cancerous cells.
This was his first televised speech to the nation, weeks after he was hospitalised in Havana, sparking widespread speculation about his health.
"They confirmed the existence of a tumourous abscess, with the presence of cancerous cells, which required another operation to extract the tumour completely," he had said.