CARACAS (AFP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, an ailing icon of the Latin American left, was recovering after a successful cancer operation in Cuba, his vice president and chosen successor said Tuesday. A visibly moved Nicolas Maduro, to whom Chavez delegated power before undergoing a fourth round of cancer surgery in Havana, said Chavez would shortly begin a “post-operative phase” that would last several days. “This operation ended correctly and successfully,” Maduro said in an address to the nation in Caracas.