Caracas - Sunday,January 6,2013

CARACAS – The president of the single-chamber National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, was reelected Saturday to preside over the Venzuelan legislature during the 2013-2014 period, with the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) voting for him and the opposition bloc voting against.

Elected as first and second vice presidents were lawmakers Dario Vivas and Blanca Eekhout, both directors of the PSUV, the party headed by the nation’s President Hugo Chavez, currently recovering in Cuba from a fourth operation on a cancer detected 1½ years ago.

“An evident and conclusive majority,” Cabello said, counting the raised hands of the 97 PSUV legislators out of a total of 165 members, adding “an evident minority” when counting the votes of the opposition.

The election of the National Assembly president took place amid an unusual awareness of how important the position will be in case of an “absolute absence” of the head of state, Hugo Chavez, who is convalescing in Cuba after being operated for cancer last Dec. 11.

The constitution says that in case there is an absolute absence of the president-elect on Jan. 10, the day of the presidential inauguration, the head of the National Assembly will take over as head of government while elections will be held to choose the country’s new president 30 days later.