Chavez health scare leaves dependent Cuba on edge

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Yahoo News:

A health scare for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who underwent surgery for cancer in Cuba, has generated deep concern in the Americas' lone communist country which depends politically and economically on him.

Chavez, 56, has been in Cuba for three weeks. Officials say he has undergone two rounds of surgery, the first to treat a pelvic abscess and another to extract a cancerous tumor.

"Hopefully, nothing will happen to him. Without Chavez, things in Cuba would get extremely rough again like before. We would be back to blackouts," said Elisa Castellanos, a 68-year-old housewife.

'Before' refers to the period before Chavez was first elected president in 1999. His arrival to power meant that post-Cold War communist Cuba, politically adrift and its economy in tatters after losing the East bloc support it depended on for three decades, got a new lease on life.

The lease has lasted a decade; now Chavez's mortality potentially could be its demise.
________

Cuba is dependent on Baby Hugo? The way things have been going, I thought it was the other way around...