Chavez in Venezuela says chemo finished successfully

CARACAS: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez returned home on Thursday saying a fourth and final session of chemotherapy in Cuba had been successful.

The 57-year-old socialist leader plans to run for another six-year term governing the South American OPEC nation at a presidential election in October 2012.

Wearing a blue and white tracksuit, he chatted with government officials and then gave a brief speech after his plane landed at Caracas's Maiquetia International Airport.

"The four sessions of chemotherapy have been highly successful," he said in comments carried live on state TV.

"Successful results, satisfactory results, all the vital signs ... very positive. We can say, thanks to these results, that we have finished the chemotherapy cycle," he said to applause from the officials gathered on the runway.

Before traveling to Cuba he said his fourth round of chemotherapy would probably be his last.

The former soldier has led the continent's biggest oil exporter since 1999 and wants to stay in office until at least 2025 to consolidate his self-styled leftist "revolution."

In June he underwent surgery in Cuba to remove a baseball-sized tumor in his pelvis, throwing added uncertainty into Venezuela's upcoming political season.

"Speculation about my health will continue ... I feel well, very well," he said on Friday.

"I am going to continue assuming, at an adequate pace, my government work, leading the government, leading the state, leading the revolutionary movement."

Copyright Reuters, 2011