Caracas: Venezuela President Hugo Chavez is tapping Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro to become his next vice-president amid speculation that the recently re-elected socialist leader’s battle with cancer may prevent him completing another six-year term.

“Putting up with me isn’t easy,” Chavez joked at a ceremony confirming his re-election over opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski. “I don’t recommend being my vice-president.”

Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader, is one of Chavez’s most loyal and longest-serving aides, having been the president of the National Assembly before becoming Venezuela’s top diplomat in 2006. Maduro’s appointment so soon after the election is a sign that Chavez is looking to groom him as a successor in case his health fails, said Gregory Weeks, a professor in Latin American politics at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte.

“This is an implicit sign that Chavez is looking to name a successor, at least in the short term,” Weeks said in a phone interview. Maduro is “someone who is close to him ideologically. Chavez doesn’t want confusion about what direction the revolution might take after he’s gone.”

Earlier this year Chavez had asked the 49-year-old to resign his post to run for the governorship of Carabobo state, though in August he changed his mind and said he’d stay in his current job defending Chavez’s anti-American foreign policy with allies including Iran, Cuba and Nicaragua.

The choice of Maduro is “a safe bet” because he’s someone who can act as a bridge between the various competing factions within chavismo, from the Cubans and ideologues to the military and pragmatists, Weeks said.

Maduro replaces Vice President Elias Jaua, who will run in December for governor of Miranda state against Capriles.

Chavez has been battling an undisclosed form of cancer for over a year, leading him to cut back on campaigning ahead of election that he won by more than 11 percentage points. While Chavez has said he’s overcome the illness, analysts from Goldman Sachs & Co and Barclays say his health may not hold out for another six years.

Under Venezuelan law, if Chavez is too ill to serve during the first four years of his term, the vice-president assumes the presidency for 30 days while elections are held. If he can’t serve the final two years, the vice president can finish out the term.

The margin of victory may encourage Chavez, who garnered 55 per cent of the vote against 44 per cent for Capriles, to try to adjust the constitution to allow a successor to serve a full term should he be compelled to step down, Bank of America Corp.’s Francisco Rodriguez wrote in a note to clients today.

“The government appears to have enough political capital to push through a reform of constitutional rules to allow for a Presidential succession to occur without the need for a new presidential election,” Rodriguez said.

“A chavista sweep of the regional elections could pave the way to put such a reform to a popular vote in early 2013, in a repeat of the strategy that led to the abolition of constitutional term limits in February 2009,” Rodriguez said.