MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chavez with significant lead in vote count

Polls officially closed Sunday in Venezuela's presidential race in which left-wing populist Hugo Chavez was widely expected to win re-election to a six-year term.

The National Electoral Council (CNE) officially declared the end of polling more than 60 minutes after the original deadline, though the agency ordered that all centres where voters remained in line should be kept open, the daily El Universal reported.

Media reports suggested throughout the day that there could be record turnout, though voting was slow and started late in several locations.

Some 150,000 troops were on the streets to maintain order as 16 million registered voters in a population of 26 million had the chance to cast ballots in roughly 36,000 voting centers.

Opinion polls ahead of the runoff showed the controversial Chavez, 52, holding a lead of more than 20 points over unified opposition candidate Manuel Rosales, 53, governor of the oil-rich western state of Zulia. However, a survey from Evans/McDonough released by internet showed the incumbent ahead with less than 18 points.

Rosales voted early in Maracaibo, Venezuela's second-largest city, and complained of "some problems with machines, which turn out blank slips when one presses to vote for Rosales," in areas that have traditionally favored the opposition.

However, he said that the process was "taking place with certain normality".

"We do not think that there are manipulations. I am going to wait until (the problems) are solved, and the proposals we are making are heard" Rosales said.

The opposition, which boycotted parliamentary elections in 2005, had expressed fears of election fraud. In past elections under the Chavez government, the opposition made fraud claims that were never substantiated, according to international monitoring organizations.

Both Chavez and Rosales have called on voters to turn out, after only 25% of the registered electorate went to the polls last year.

The elections were being observed by several delegations, including teams from the European Union, the Organization of American States, the private Carter Centre of former US president Jimmy Carter, and Mercosur.

Chavez has won support from millions of poor Venezuelans by using oil wealth to boost social programs. Chavez, who rose to power in 1999 amid widespread disenchantment with the old political order, has promised to consolidate what he calls his "social Bolivarian revolution".