Senior aides and relatives of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez countered a crescendo of rumours that the socialist president may be dead from cancer, sayinghewasstillbattlingforhislife.

"There he is, continuing his fight, his battle, and we are sure of victory!" his older brother Adan Chavez, the

governor of Barinas state, told cheering supporters on Friday.

Speculation about Chavez, 58, hit fever pitch this week, fed in part by assertions from Panama's former ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Guillermo Cochez, that the Venezuelan leader had died. He challenged officials to prove him wrong by showing the president in public.

"The launching of absurd and bizarre rumours by the right wing simply discredits them and isolates them further from the people," said Chavez's son-in-law Jorge Arreaza, addingthat the presidentwas "calm" inahospi-tal with his family and doctors.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro, theOPEC nation's de facto leader and Chavez's preferred successor, urged Venezuelans to staycalm,patientandrespectfulofthepresident'sstate.

"The treatments Commander Chavez is receiving are tough, but he is stronger than them," Maduro said after a Catholic Mass in Chavez's honour at a chapel in the hospital.