Chávez: health "will not be a determining factor" in the campaign.

Agency Brazil – Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said today (9) that his state of health “will not be a determining factor” in the campaign for the October 7 presidential elections, in which he hopes to be re-elected for a new term.

"Every day I feel in better physical condition. Supposedly very famous doctors said I wouldn't make it [alive] to 2012. I thank God, medical science, and the Cuban team that assisted me with the illness that came on so suddenly," he stated.

Hugo Chávez spoke during a meeting with journalists, in which he emphasized that he is physically and mentally ready for the presidential campaign, just over a year after beginning cancer treatment.

"Despite the ill wishes of some people, some who said I wouldn't make it to 2012, that I couldn't formalize my candidacy because, according to them, I wouldn't be able to walk. But, thank God and medical science, every day I feel in better physical condition," he said, stressing, however, that he is no longer "the 40-year-old Chávez."

The Venezuelan president announced that he finished his radiation therapy cycle eight weeks ago and that the treatment is having a progressive effect. He said he is eager to play soccer again.

Chávez, 57, underwent surgery on February 26 in Havana for a new 2-centimeter "lesion," which he says was detected in the same location where a tumor containing cancerous cells was removed last June. Since then, he has traveled to Cuba several times, where he began radiotherapy in March.

The recurrence of cancer occurred after Hugo Chávez reiterated, at the end of 2011, that he had been cured of the disease, insisting on running again for President of the Republic in the elections scheduled for October 7. Chávez will compete for the presidency with the governor of the state of Miranda, Henrique Capriles Radonski, the opposition candidate.

With information from Lusa Agency