Chavez says 200 aides will help him tweet

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made an outlandish claim about his widely-followed Twitter account last week.

The Associated Press reported Sunday:

He urged supporters to join as well, calling Twitter "a weapon that also needs to be used by the revolution."

Since then, Chavez says, he has been overwhelmed by nearly 54,000 messages from supporters, critics and people writing to ask for help with a problem or lodge a complaint. On Thursday, he announced that a new team of 200 aides would help him manage the stream.

American politicians usually have a handful of assistants, if that, who help them tweet. Several lawmakers tweet on their own.

Chavez joined the site late last month and tweets under the handle @chavezcandanga and already has over 264,000 followers. His tweets have been exclusively in Spanish.

By comparison, President Barack Obama has over 3.9 million followers.