Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro said Tuesday President Hugo Chavez will not attend the presidential inauguration this week for his third term in office due to health problems.

Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro said Tuesday President Hugo Chavez will not attend the presidential inauguration this week for his third term in office due to health problems.

In a letter to the Venezuelan National Assembly read out on Tuesday, Maduro said Chavez would miss Thursday's scheduled swearing-in ceremony as his recovery process "should be extended beyond Jan. 10" on the advice of his medical team.

On Friday, he stated that Chavez invoked a provision in the constitution allowing him to be sworn in before the Supreme Court of Justice at a later date if he is unable to take the oath before lawmakers in the assembly.

The 58-year-old president is in Cuba after undergoing a fourth round of cancer surgery in the Cuban capital Havana on December 11, 2012.