CARACAS: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez lost his battle with cancer Tuesday, silencing the leading voice of the Latin American left and plunging his divided oil-rich nation into an uncertain future.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro, who struggled to hold back tears as he announced Chavez’s death, said the government had deployed the armed forces and police “to accompany and protect our people and guarantee the peace.”

Chavez had named Maduro as his heir, but the Venezuelan opposition is sure to press for fresh elections and tensions have been mounting over government allegations that its domestic rivals are in league with its foreign foes.

Shortly before Chavez’s death was announced, Maduro and other top officials had accused Venezuela’s enemies of giving the 58-year-old leftist the cancer that eventually killed him, and two U.S. military attaches were expelled.

Under the constitution, polls must be held within 30 days and National Assembly Speaker Diosdado Cabello must take over on an interim basis, but Chavez had urged Venezuelans to vote for Maduro if he was unable to return.

Soldiers brought the Venezuelan flag down to half-staff at the Caracas military hospital, where senior figures in Chavez’s 14-year-old administration gathered before the cameras of state television to break the news.

“We have received the toughest and tragic information that ... Comandante President Hugo Chavez died today at 4:25 p.m.,” Maduro said.

“Long live Chavez!” the officials shouted at the end of his announcement.

Chavez had been checked into the hospital on Feb. 18 for a course of chemotherapy after spending two months in Cuba, where in December he had undergone his fourth round of cancer surgery since June 2011.

The once ubiquitous symbol of Latin America’s “anti-imperialist” left had disappeared from public view after he was flown to Cuba on Dec. 10.

The government sent mixed signals about the president’s health for weeks, warning one day that he was battling for his life, yet insisting as recently as last weekend that he was still in charge and giving orders. And the opposition repeatedly accused the government of lying about the president’s condition.

Chavez will be mourned by many of the country’s poor, who revered the self-styled revolutionary for using the country’s oil riches to fund popular housing, health, food and education programs.

And like-minded Latin American leaders like Cuba’s Raul Castro, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa and Bolivia’s Evo Morales lost a close friend who used his diplomatic muscle and cheap oil to shore up their rule.

Chavez died five months after winning an October election, overcoming a resurgent opposition and public frustration over a rising murder rate, regular blackouts and soaring inflation.

He missed his swearing-in for a new term on Jan. 10, but the Supreme Court approved an indefinite delay.

Defense Minister Diego Molero, surrounded by top military officers, said Tuesday that the armed forces would defend the constitution and respect Chavez’s wishes. “We are united to fulfill and protect the precepts of the constitution and the wishes of our leader, commander-in-chief Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias,” he added.