CARACAS: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, an ailing icon of the Latin American left, was recovering after a successful cancer operation in Cuba, his vice president and chosen successor said on Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila).

A visibly moved Nicolas Maduro, to whom Chavez delegated power before undergoing a fourth round of cancer surgery in Havana, said that Chavez would shortly begin a “post-operative phase” that would last several days.

“This operation ended correctly and successfully,” Maduro said in an address to the nation in Caracas. “In these coming hours, we will be very attentive.”

He described the six-hour operation as a “corrective surgery of a lesion” that occurred in the pelvic region, but did not elaborate.

Chavez, 58, flew to Havana for surgery on Monday after revealing to his stunned countrymen over the weekend that his cancer had returned just two months after his triumphant re-election to a six-year term.

The president was first diagnosed with the disease in June 2011. He had assured Venezuelans that he was cancer-free after three rounds of surgery, in addition to chemotherapy and radiation.

Significant aspects of his condition—including the type, location and severity of his cancer—have been kept secret over the past 18 months, fueling rumors and uncertainty in Venezuela.

Tareck El Aissami, a former interior minister and member of Venezuela’s ruling party, had taken to the airwaves shortly after doctors began operating on Chavez to said that all was “going well.”

Chavez’s medical team expressed “optimism” as the cancer-stricken Venezuelan president went into surgery, while hundreds of faithful supporters gathered to pray that the longtime, omnipresent leader would live.

Venezuelan state TV showed hundreds of laborers demonstrating outside the presidential palace in Miraflores.

Maduro urged the president’s supporters to vote for allied candidates in December 16 regional elections, saying: “When we vote for your candidates, Chavez, we feel we are giving you a hug or a kiss.”