President Hugo Chávez Returns to Venezuela, His Health Still Unclear

Meridith Kohut for The New York Times

Supporters of President Hugo Chávez rallied outside a military hospital in Caracas, Venezuela, where he was admitted Monday.

CARACAS, Venezuela — In a surprise predawn homecoming, President Hugo Chávez returned to Venezuela on Monday more than two months after having cancer surgery in Cuba, potentially clearing up some of the legal questions that have roiled the nation during his long absence but doing little to dispel the deep uncertainty over who is running the country.

Mr. Chávez's plane touched down around 2:30 a.m., according to Vice President Nicolás Maduro, and Mr. Chávez was immediately taken to a military hospital in Caracas. Employees there said he was installed as the only patient on the top floor of one wing. Members of the presidential honor guard, with their red berets, guarded the hospital's lobby, elevators and floors.

Unlike Mr. Chávez's other returns from treatments in Cuba, this was hardly a triumphant arrival. There were no television images or photographs of him descending from the presidential plane in a track suit and greeting officials on the tarmac, as there were in the past, raising questions about whether the government was seeking to keep a severely weakened president out of public view.

"The only thing that has changed is the location of his seclusion," said Vladimir Villegas, a former ambassador for Mr. Chávez's government. "The uncertainty is the same. Nothing is certain."

For the last two months, Venezuela has been in a state of suspense, with Mr. Chávez out of sight and the government insisting that he continued to run the country from a hospital bed in Cuba while the political opposition demanded proof that he was capable of doing so.

As news of his return spread, small groups of supporters took to the streets, setting off fireworks, chanting and painting his name on passing cars and buses. But the moment everyone had been waiting for was anticlimactic: Mr. Chávez remained sequestered, just as he had been for weeks. Beyond his ability to travel, there was little indication that his health had taken a significant turn for the better or that he could soon resume his place at the head of the nation. What might have been a sign of recovery instead provided further evidence of continued fragility.

Until now, the government has studiously avoided talking about the possibility of holding an election to replace Mr. Chávez. But on Monday, a government-run newspaper, Correo del Orinoco, ran a banner front-page headline saying that Mr. Maduro, who is Mr. Chávez's designated successor, would win an "eventual presidential election" — a shift in tone that analysts viewed as particularly significant.

Last Friday, government officials announced for the first time that Mr. Chávez, known the world over for his volubility, now had difficulty speaking because of a tube inserted in his trachea to help him breathe. His son-in-law, Science and Technology Minister Jorge Arreaza, said Mr. Chávez had lost his "characteristic voice" but still participated in meetings with top officials and had made every important decision in his government since leaving for surgery. He said Mr. Chávez sometimes writes notes and manages to make himself understood.

Such assertions have been met with disbelief by opposition leaders, who say that a man who is too sick to appear or speak to the nation cannot be capable of leading.

Even some Chávez supporters have voiced skepticism. When officials said a major currency devaluation announced this month had been approved by Mr. Chávez directly, they showed a signed document to prove it.

"If he was sick, how did he sign it? That's what doesn't convince me," said José Alberto Fernández, an ardent Chávez supporter who sold plantains on a street corner a few blocks from the military hospital. He said he did not have faith in Mr. Maduro or the other officials running the government and was elated to have the president back on home soil. "We need a leader," he said.

María Eugenia Díaz contributed reporting.

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