Venezuelans face anxious wait on Chavez surgery Venezuelans are on tenterhooks, unsure how President Hugo Chavez will fare in surgery in Cuba to have a lesion removed from the same pelvic area where a cancerous tumor was cut out last year. The possible return of Chavez's cancer has cast doubt over his bid to be re-elected on October 7, in what is likely to be the most closely contested presidential election in years. Chavez, a leftist anti-American firebrand, faces a strong challenge from 39-year-old Henrique Capriles, who was chosen as the sole opposition candidate in a primary earlier this month. Chavez, 57, has used Venezuela's vast oil wealth to help keep his Communist ally Cuba afloat for a decade, as he courted anti-US allies from Iran to Syria to Libya and Bolivia. His survival in power is pivotal to the fate of both his nation, South America's preeminent oil power and an OPEC member, and Cuba's. The Americas' only one-party Communist regime in Havana would be rocked without the Venezuelan cut-rate oil that helps keep its feeble economy alive. The Venezuelan president underwent medical tests Saturday in Havana, and said he expected to be operated on Monday or Tuesday at the top-of-the-line Cuban medical center CIMEQ. But he and his travel companions, including family and colleagues, stayed mum over the weekend. Chavez remains the active-duty president while away from Venezuela and is running for reelection in October after 13 years at Venezuela's helm. Chavez said Friday that his Health Minister Eugenia Sader would be giving updates on his condition. As of Monday midday, there had been none. In Venezuela, private media were up in arms at the lack of information coming from the government over the weekend. Chavez usually fills the local airwaves with round-the-clock political discourse, and some ministers took to TV seemingly only to try to fill the void. Chavez declared himself cancer-free last October only to deliver the shocking news on February 21 that a one-inch lesion had been discovered. "Nobody can say right now that it is another malignant tumor," but "the likelihood that it is malignant is greater than that it is not," he admitted at the time. Chavez could still appoint a successor to run in his place, delay the October vote, or soldier on and focus the campaign on his left-wing legacy. His relapse did not come as an absolute surprise. And neither has the lack of official information on Chavez's operation," said Luis Leon of pollsters Datanalisis. I think what people are waiting for is for the president being seen again, for him to look solid, recovered and even for him to come home. Chavez has never specified what kind of cancer he is suffering from and denied that he is facing metastasis -- when the disease spreads to another organ or organs. Like last year, when he had his initial cancer care in Havana, Chavez did not delegate power to his Vice President Elias Jaua as some opposition members sought. His operation was expected to be at CIMEQ, the pride of Cuba's health care system, where Fidel Castro was treated after the intestinal ailment that forced him to step aside in 2006 after five decades at the helm. CIMEQ is an abbreviation of Medical-Surgical Research Center. The two and three-story facility sits on a sprawling, leafy campus in western Havana not far from the homes of the retired revolutionary icon, now 85, and President Raul Castro, 80. It often treats Cuba's sports stars as well as some everyday Cubans whose conditions are complex or are believed to require higher-tech care.