Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez regretted Thursday that he could not travel to Cuba to participate in celebrations for Fidel Castro’s 80th birthday, but assured he would do so after winning Sunday’s presidential elections.

CARACAS, November 30.— Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez regretted Thursday that he could not travel to Cuba to participate in celebrations for Fidel Castro’s 80th birthday, but assured he would do so after winning Sunday’s presidential elections.
"I’m always with Fidel and will always be with Cuba," Chavez told Granma newspaper moments before beginning a press conference at the presidential offices in Caracas with the national and foreign media covering the Venezuelan elections.
Referring to the latest pre-voting developments, Chavez said the country’s intelligence services have dismantled several plans to destabilize the country including a plot against a train and another against the leading opposition candidate, Manuel Rosales.
"We have the weapon with which they were planning to shot him at a public rally and then, to create chaos, say that it was Chavez who ordered him killed," he said.
Chavez revealed that a group of "radical fascists" was contemplating causing a so-called Madrid effect, with the attack on the train, hoping for a similar reaction as took place in Spain during the last elections when Jose Maria Aznar was voted out of office after the Madrid train explosions.
"There is a group playing with disaster," said the president, who assured that measures have been taken to guarantee the climate of calm that has characterized the Venezuelan electoral campaign.
Chavez said that in recent hours the government has received messages from members of the opposition unhappy with their colleague’s plans to divulge exit polls and then declare fraud.
"We hope this type of irresponsible activity doesn’t occur and that the media outlets accustomed to violating the laws and operating in support of coups do not continue to play the game, because if they do, they will have to prepare to reap the consequences," stressed Chavez.