May 7 (Reuters) - President Hugo Chavez's silence during his latest cancer treatment has heightened speculation about a possible succession in Venezuela.
The 57-year-old socialist leader has never named anyone as his choice to continue his self-styled "revolution," but there are a number of possible contenders being touted:
DIOSDADO CABELLO
Cabello, a fellow former soldier who joined Chavez's attempted coup against President Carlos Andres Perez in 1992, has wielded considerable power in business, military and government circles during the Chavez years.
His loyalty has been rewarded with numerous posts and in January Chavez appointed him to the prominent and delicate position of president of the National Assembly. He is also No. 2 in the ruling Socialist Party, or PSUV, after Chavez.
As vice president in 2002, Cabello became one of the world's shortest-serving heads of state when he assumed the top job during a two-day coup against Chavez.
His first order then was to send a group of elite navy troops to rescue Chavez, who was being held prisoner by renegade forces at a base on a Caribbean island.
He governed Venezuela's second most populous state, Miranda, from 2004 until 2008 when opposition leader Henrique Capriles defeated him. He has served in various ministerial roles including infrastructure, interior, justice and public works.
Opposition media question Cabello's business interests and portray him as the quintessential "boli-bourgeois," a term critics use for those who have made good during Chavez's "Bolivarian" revolution.
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NICOLAS MADURO
A former trade unionist for Caracas public transport, Maduro has been foreign minister since 2006. Many, particularly in diplomatic and Wall Street circles, see him as the heir-in-waiting, partly due to his smoother and more affable manner.
Maduro has delivered several important government statements since Chavez was diagnosed with cancer last year, and has visited him in Havana several times during his convalescence.
His trade union background gives him strong appeal among Chavez's working class supporters and he is highly respected among the president's inner circle.
He was elected in 2000 as a deputy to the National Assembly, where his combative defense of Chavez's self-styled revolution turned him into one of the president's favored proteges.
He rose to become president of the legislature, and upon becoming foreign minister passed his previous post to his wife, Cilia Flores, a lawyer who became the first woman to serve as National Assembly president, between 2006 and 2011.
When Chavez was sent to prison following his failed coup attempt in 1992, it was Flores who led the legal team that won him his freedom two years later. She now serves as the country's attorney general, and the pair are seen as a "power couple" in government circles.
RAFAEL RAMIREZ
Energy minister since 2002 and president of the OPEC member's state oil company PDVSA since 2004, Ramirez is one of the longest-serving senior officials in the Chavez administration and also one of the closest to him.
Sometimes seen by outsiders as the de facto No. 2 in the government, he has huge responsibilities running his ministry as well as one of the biggest oil companies in the world, particularly since PDVSA has taken on more and more social functions from providing food to building houses.
Ramirez was previously a student of Adan Chavez, the president's older brother, at the University of the Andes where he qualified as an engineering graduate.
A passionate and diehard supporter of "Chavismo," Ramirez created controversy and infuriated government opponents in a speech declaring Venezuela's oil industry "roja, rojita" (red from top to bottom).
ELIAS JAUA
The vice president was one of the most prominent faces of the government during Chavez's absence for cancer treatment last year, calling for unity in the ruling Socialist Party and assuring the world the president remained in charge.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he rose to prominence among university activists, frequenting rock-throwing university protests linked to a leftist party called Red Flag.
Considered ambitious and precociously smart, he was nominated to be Venezuela's ambassador to Argentina in 2002. But Buenos Aires rejected his bid on concerns that he maintained ties with the country's radical leftist sectors.
Chavez tapped Jaua in 2006 as agriculture minister to lead a land reform crusade applauded by the rural poor but harshly criticized by business sectors as weakening property rights.
He has been vice president since early 2010.
Born in 1969, the sociologist and former university professor helped found the PSUV that swept Chavez into office, and he was one of the authors of a new constitution in 2000.
A video showing him slurring his speech while welcoming competitors to a sporting event last year, possibly under the influence of alcohol, tarnished his reputation at an important time during Chavez's absence in Cuba.
HENRY RANGEL SILVA
Praising him as a "good soldier," Chavez has made General Henry Rangel Silva his defense minister despite U.S. allegations that he aided Colombia's FARC rebels with drug trafficking.
He also joined Chavez's 1992 coup attempt and has occupied various positions in government since Chavez took power in 1999.
On taking up his new position, Rangel declared that "our military thinking is anti-imperialist."
ADAN CHAVEZ
The older brother of the president and also one of his political mentors, Adan Chavez is a physicist by profession who is often counted among the government's "hardliners."
He was put in charge of strengthening the connections between Venezuela and communist-led Cuba when he was Caracas' ambassador to Havana.
But he left the inner circle of power around his brother when he decided to run for the post of governor in their home state of Barinas, succeeding their father in the position.
Being so close to the president, many supporters of Chavez have considered him a "safe" choice to succeed him.
But given his more radical left-wing views, he could prove to be a divisive figure and trigger internal disputes within the PSUV, which he helped to found.
MARIA GABRIELA CHAVEZ
Often at her father's side, Maria Gabriela carries out some of the official functions of a first lady. Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro calls her Venezuela's "heroine."
Chavez has often said he would like to hand over power to a woman, leading to speculation she might be a surprise choice.
"She was always very close to him (Chavez) and identified with him in so many ways. She's a sort of a continuation of him," her mother, Chavez's ex-wife Nancy, has said. (Reporting by Andrew Cawthorne, Diego Ore, Daniel Wallis, Eyanir Chinea, Marianna Parraga, Brian Ellsworth; editing by Todd Eastham)
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