"The recovery has been slow but progressive."Caracas (ANTARA News/Reuters) - Venezuela`s President Hugo Chavez is recovering "satisfactorily" from his cancer surgery in Cuba although the process remains slow, Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said.
Reading the latest of regular government updates on the socialist leader`s condition, three days after his operation, Villegas said the 58-year-old president had communicated with relatives and sent greetings to all Venezuelans.
"The recovery has been slow but progressive," he said.
Born into a working-class family in Sabaneta, Barinas, Chavez became a career military officer, and after becoming dissatisfied with the Venezuelan political system, he founded the secretive Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200 (MBR-200) in the early 1980s to work towards overthrowing it.
Chavez led the MBR-200 in an unsuccessful coup d'etat against the Democratic Action government of President Carlos Andres Perez government in 1992, for which he was imprisoned.
Born 28 July 1954 he is the current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).
On 30 June 2011, Chávez stated that he was recovering from a 10 June operation to remove an abscessed tumor with cancerous cells. He shortly afterwards required a second operation. As of December 2012 he is facing his fourth operation for cancer.
(Uu.H-AK)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
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