Venezuela's Chavez to Get Radiation Treatment Soon

Ailing President Hugo Chavez, just back from cancer surgery in Cuba, said Saturday he would start radiation treatments "in the coming days," amid rising drama over his health as he seeks reelection late his year.

"Now I have to start radiation in the coming days to attack any new threat. This cancer is not going to be the end of Chavez," the leftist president told supporters at Miraflores Palace, without saying if he would be treated in Venezuela or Cuba, his main regional ally.

"So here I am... back with more strength and love and drive to live," said Chavez, 57, amid surging concerns even among his followers about whether he can tough out the grind of a reelection campaign ahead of the October 7 election.

Chavez underwent surgery in Havana on February 26 to remove a cancerous tumor around the pelvis, the same area from where a first tumor was extracted in June 2011.

Officials in Caracas have never specified what type of cancer the president is suffering from, but they have denied the disease has spread to other organs.

Latin America's highest-profile leftist leader, who has been in power since 1999, faces a strong challenge in the October 7 presidential election from 39-year-old Henrique Capriles, the candidate of a unified opposition.

And Chavez stressed that he would be his party's man in the October vote.

"That's another one of the tales the opposition is telling, that maybe I am dying, and that I am not going to make it through the campaign; that (Vice President) Elias (Jaua) already has been picked as my successor... They have a whole soap opera of a tale they are telling," Chavez said.

The longtime elected socialist leader promised that he would give a "memorable whooping" to Capriles.

"We have got to take to the streets. It's not going to be the Venezuelan bourgeoisie who take to the streets. The streets belong to the people, not to the bourgeoisie," a feisty-sounding Chavez said.