As most people know, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez hasn’t been seen or heard from since he traveled to Cuba on Dec. 10 to undergo another round of surgery for an undisclosed form of cancer.

His prolonged silence has fueled all sorts of rumors that he was in an induced coma, on life support, etc. Those suspicions only grew deeper last week when Chávez purportedly wrote to the National Assembly to say that he would not be at his Jan. 10 inauguration. That letter, however, was not signed by Chávez, but by his VP Maduro. 

But now a Chávez signature has turned up. On Tuesday, Maduro said the ailing president had appointed Elías Jaua as his new foreign minister. Today, VTV has running with this image of the Official Gazette, which show’s the president’s signature as part of the Jaua designation. 

Still, most people want to see or hear their leader, but this does seem to support the  administration’s claims that Chávez is making a recovery. 

 Venezuela’s ruling party had vowed to sweep the nation’s key governors’ race as a tribute to their stricken leader President Hugo Chávez who is convalescing in a Cuban hospital.

On Sunday, it made good on that promise, winning 20 of 23 states and punching into opposition strongholds, according to preliminary results.

“Chavismo, the force of the nation, won a crushing majority,” said Jorge Rodriguez, the head of the national campaign for the ruling Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela. “This is a victory for all of Venezuela but particularly a victory for Chávez.”

But there were some bright spots for the battered opposition. Henrique Capriles, the 40-year-old governor of Miranda state, won reelection in a critical race that may give him a second-shot at leading the country.

News has a way of breaking into your holiday. I've been on furlough for the last week, but had to rush home as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that he was returning to Cuba for more surgery to treat his cancer.

This is his second relapse and fourth surgery, and it raises an interesting question: how was his health - really - when he was on the campaign trail just a few weeks ago and telling crowds that he was completely cured?

On Sunday, his rival in the Oct. 7 presidential race, which Chavez won with a commanding 55 percent of the vote, said many people had voted for the presdient  because they had been reassured that he was healthy enough to take office Jan. 10 and fulfill the six-year term.

Did Chavez know his cancer had returned while he was still on the trail? Did he put his health at risk to win the election? We'll likely never know, but they're interesting questions.

At any rate. Here's a video of Chavez leaving for Havana early this morning. And here's the story Andrew Rosati and I wrote last night about the reaction in Caracas.

When things slow down, I want to tell you about this place and these trees:

I spent election day on Colombian naval base on the Pacific. Military men are pretty circumspect when it comes to politics, but everyone said it wouldn't have mattered who won the vote, because US-Colombia relations are so institutionalized and far-reaching that they're immune to politics. I'm not sure that's completely true, but thought it was an interesting sentiment.

My colleagues Mimi Whitefield and Tim Johnson take a deeper look at the Latin American reaction to the US vote in today's Miami Herald.  

MEXICO CITY -- There’s agreement across the region that Latin America wasn’t a priority during the first term of President Barack Obama but analysts say there are issues that might raise the profile of Latin America and the Caribbean during the president’s second term. Among them: trade, potential political change in the region, the potent voting bloc U.S. Hispanics have become, immigration, changing U.S. attitudes toward drug policy and security. But, in general, regional expectations for meaningful change in U.S. Latin American and Caribbean policy during Obama’s second term were muted. The campaigns of both Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney “proved that Latin America is not a priority for the United States,’’ said Simon Pachano, a political science professor at the Latin American Faculty for Social Sciences in Ecuador. “Latin America existed when they were looking for Hispanic votes, but it wasn’t present in their foreign policy proposals.”

Read the full story here.

When Venezuelan voters hit the ballot box this weekend, they will have 22 ways to vote for opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles — but four of them won’t work.

Late changes to the ballot might turn the day into a guessing game for voters after four political parties that previously supported Capriles changed their minds.

As a result, anyone who checks the Unidad Democrática box, which has a picture of Capriles, might actually be voting for Reina Sequera — a dark-horse candidate who has vowed to give every Venezuelan $1 million and free Internet access. (You can read her platform here.) Votes for three other parties, which also have Capriles’ picture, will result in nullified ballots.

Read the full story here

To help those going to the polls, I've created a cheat sheet below. The crowned Capriles is the vote that will go toward Sequera (in a Christmas hat). The bearded Capriles are the null votes.

Speaking of hats, a hat tip is due to Russ Dallen and his excellent BBO Financial Services newsletter, which first alerted me to the issue. 

Prolific author and The New Yorker writer Jon Lee Anderson unloaded on Spain's La Razon newspaper over the weekend for misquoting him about the upcoming elections in Venezuela. The article in question has since been taken down, but Anderson says that the story, about potential fraud in the upcoming race, quotes him as saying that Chavez is too "delusional" to believe that he will lose the Oct. 7 vote.

On his Facebook page, Anderson says that  he did, in fact, say that Chavez cannot imagine losing the race, but that there's nothing "delusional" about it since he's "won every election and Plebiscite" he's faced. 

(Chavez did narrowly lose the 2007 push to change the constitution, but that's not the point.)

"This is what drives me nuts about this type of Spanish journalism: that they ask for an interview, you give it, and then they put words in your mouth," Anderson writes. "I will never give an interview to that sh**** paper again."

The interesting thing about this, to me at least, is that it's Venezuela's Ministry of Information and Communication that's been letting reporters know about the whole mess. Their headline: "They fabricated an anti-Chavez quote for a gringo journalist."  It seems like a strange use of government resources, but I suppose all is fair in election season. 

Here's Anderson's full post from his Facebook page:

Esto: Me saca de quicio este estirpe del periodismo espanol: Que te piden la entrevista; lo facilitas, y luego, te meten palabras en la boca. Lo que aca me "cita" el periodico La Razon simplemente no es cierto. Es decir: yo si dije que Chavez no se imaginaba perder las venideras elecciones jamas. Tal cual. Ni fa ni fu, ni mas ni menos. Pero nunca lo caracterize como un "delirio" de el. Porque seria delirio si siempre ha ganado todas las elecciones y plebescitos que ha propuesto? Pero el hecho que sea delirio o no, no es el lio. Es que no lo dije yo. Lo dijo La Razon. Poner esa caracterizacion en boca mia es burda, tabloidista, tendencioso y falso. En algunos paises, daria pie a una querella. No se si en Espana existen leyes ya, pero por si las moscas, nunca mas dare declaraciones ni entrevistas a ese diario de mierda.

Mexico's Consulta Mitofsky just put out their regional leadership list. The ranking is based on approval ratings so they're not strictly comparable nation-to-nation, but let's not let that get in the way of a good list.

Approval ratings are usually a good indicator of a candidate's election chances, so we'll have three opportunities in coming months to test that thesis. Hugo Chavez (ranked No. 4) is facing reelection Oct. 7, Rafael Correa (ranked No. 1!) faces reelection in February, and, of course, Barack Obama (ranked No. 10) has his chance Nov. 6. 

Without further ado: 

Top 5 Leaders in the Region based on approval ratings

#1 Ecuador - Rafael Correa 80%

#2 El Salvador - Mauricio Funes 72%

#3 Guatemala - Otto Perez 69%

#4 Venezuela - Hugo Chavez 64%

#5 Brazil - Dilma Rousseff 62%

...And the Bottom 5:

#16 Canada- Stephen Harper 37%

#17 Paraguay - Federico Franco 36%

#18 Chile - Sebastian Pinera 36%

#19 Honduras - Porfirio Lobo 14%

#20 Costa Rica - Laura Chinchilla 13%

To see the full list click here.

So the US Department of State confirmed today that the US Agency for International Development is getting booted from Russia.

Here's Reuters take on it: Analysts said they believed the Russian decision partly reflected Moscow's hostility toward US-funded groups that seek to promote democracy and the rule of law in Russia.

What does this have to do with Latin America? Well, in theory, a few Latin American nations are mulling getting rid of USAID also. 

In June, the political council of the eight-nation ALBA bloc of countries, led by Venezuela, asked members to “immediately expel” USAID, accusing it of “destabilizing our legitimate governments.”

In July, Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa, who may run for re-election in February, warned supporters that USAID was fueling the opposition by pumping millions into “democracy strengthening” projects.

Correa said he’s writing up new rules for USAID.

“If they don’t want to follow them, then ‘So long,’” he said. “Go help some other country.”

So far, none of the nations have followed through on the threat and Ecuador has yet to announce its new guidelines. But it will be interesting to see if the Russian move is the begin of....

 Read the full story about the Latam fracas here.

And you can read the State Department's statement here.

To outside observers, polls in Venezuela seem downright schizophrenic. Both camps bandy about figures that give them sizeable leads.

Today, two of those dueling surveys came out. First, the Ministry of Communications released a report by IVAD, which gives President Hugo Chavez 55 percent of the vote versus rival Henrique Capriles' 36 percent of the vote. IVAD is considered a serious pollster, but you would never know it from their online presence. Their website www.ivad.com.ve has been under construction for at least two years. 

Also today, an outfit with a fantastic name, Predicmatica, told Noticias24 that Capriles has a a five-point lead over Chavez at 48 percent to 43 percent. Predicmatica has had Capriles in the lead since January, making it one of the most opposition friendly pollsters.

Even so, the vast majority of polls still have Chavez in the lead and with approval ratings that would make most presidents envious - not bad for someone who has been in power for 14 years. 

Capriles isn't worried about the polls. I caught up with him on the campaign trail recently (read that story here), and he said he has his own polls that show him in the lead. (Read that interview here.)

For a very funny take on Venezuela's pollsters check out Caracas Chronicles here.  

One person who has to be relieved that London's Olympics are over is WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy in London for more than six weeks fighting extradition to Sweden and waiting for the Andean nation to make a decision on his asylum request.

Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño had said that decision wouldn't be coming until after the torch was put out.

Ecuador's not the most obvious choice for Assange. The country has developed a reputation for cracking down on local media. Check out this story about it here. 

But Correa and Assange do seem to have a rapport. When Assange interviewed him in May for his show "The World Tomorrow" the pair shared a few good laughs. One of the best jokes to come out of that exchange was one by Correa that goes something like this: You know why the United States will never have a coup? Because they're the only country without a U.S. embassy. 

See the full interview here.