Why is it that when dictators need serious medical treatment they always leave their own countries to get it?

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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he’ll fly to Cuba today for a second stage of treatment involving chemotherapy as he fights cancer in what he has called the “battle of my life.”

“I need to continue completing the strict plan designed by the medical team that is accompanying me on this ascent of the mountain,” Chavez said yesterday in comments carried on state television. “I’m asking for legislative authority to absent myself from the country from Saturday, July 16, in order to continue the treatment plan in Havana needed for me to recover my full health.”

Chavez, who has led South America’s largest oil producer since 1999, was operated on June 20 for an undisclosed form of malignant cancer after an initial operation to remove a pelvic abscess on June 11. The self-declared socialist said July 13 that doctors removed a baseball-sized tumor from his pelvic area. In his comments yesterday, he didn’t disclose how long he would remain out of Venezuela and whether he would cede power to Vice President Elias Jaua.

“I’m going to begin the second stage of this slow and complex process of recuperation,” the 56-year-old leader said. “The second stage will start with chemotherapy that has already been planned in scientific detail.”

Venezuela’a National Assembly will vote today on whether to grant Chavez permission to travel to Cuba for treatment, according to a statement on its website. Chavez holds a majority in Congress.

‘State Secret’

The president’s announcement quashes reports that he would go to Brazil for treatment after an offer by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who herself was treated for a lymphoma in 2009 at a hospital in Sao Paulo.

Cuba was chosen over Brazil because it will be easier for Chavez to keep his exact prognosis a secret, said Jose Vicente Carrasquero, a political analyst at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas.

“In Brazil, it would be very difficult to keep people in the dark about what’s going on because public opinion would demand answers and the Brazilian media would investigate,” Carrasquero said in a phone interview. “In Cuba, the president’s health will be handled like a state secret.”

Opposition, Transition

Chavez and his government have repeatedly denied opposition demands that he hand over power temporarily to Jaua while he undergoes treatment. The opposition’s push for a political transition on the premise that he’s “finished” due to cancer will fail, the president said July 14.

“The opposition is pushing for a transition and saying that Chavez is finished, that he’s chopped up into 20 pieces,” Chavez said. “The only transition here is from capitalism to socialism.”

The Venezuelan constitution is vague about the legality of a president absenting himself from duties while he seeks medical treatment abroad, said Carrasquero. Chavez is unlikely to cede power unless his health deteriorates significantly, he said.

“The president has never left a delegate behind and he’s not going to do it now,” Carrasquero said. “He considers it a weakness to leave someone in charge.”

Patients are treated with chemotherapy or radiation even after a tumor is successfully removed to prevent the cancer from recurring, said Jeffrey Meyerhardt, a gastrointestinal oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

Challenges

While radiation is sometimes easier to tolerate than chemotherapy when targeted to specific areas of the body, both cause fatigue and nausea. Even so, many patients in high profile jobs are able to work full time through treatment sessions that can last several weeks, Meyerhardt said.

Chavez’s health problems have overshadowed the economic challenges he faces to secure re-election, which include the highest inflation rate in the hemisphere, food shortages, violent crime and a housing shortage of more than 2 million units.

The yield on Venezuela’s 9.25 percent benchmark bond due in 2027 has fallen 82 basis points, or 0.82 percentage points, to 12.98 percent since June 13, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The price has risen 4.24 cents on the dollar to 75.025 cents.

The cost of protecting Venezuelan debt against non-payment for five years with credit-default swaps has fallen 135 basis points to 994 yesterday in that same period, according to data compiled by CMA in New York.

‘Path to Recovery’

Before his health crisis, the president hosted his own television show most Sundays that lasted up to seven hours without commercial breaks and sometimes featured spontaneous expropriations of businesses after followers complained of exploitation.

His improvised speeches have ranged over philosophy, baseball and diatribes against the U.S. “empire.”

Now the former paratrooper has altered what he described as a “lifestyle of death” and is waking up at 5 a.m. to undergo rehabilitation with his team of doctors, take medical exams and return to bed early. Chavez said he has cut down his coffee intake from 40 cups a day to just one or two cups and has taken up painting again to relax.

“I have faith in God, medical science and our Cuban and Venezuelan doctors and finally in my own will to live -- to live for my people, for my daughters and grandchildren and myself -- that we will continue along the path to recovery,” he said.