Chavez comfortably ahead of opposition candidate Capriles, show opinion polls

Tuesday, June 19th 2012 - 23:06 UTC

Full article 3 comments

The Venezuelan president spends much time in regular appearances on state TV

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has a 16-percentage-point lead over opposition candidate Henrique Capriles ahead of an election in October, a new opinion poll showed on Tuesday.

The survey by respected local pollster Datanalisis found that 43.6% of voters favour Chavez, versus 27.7% for the Democratic Unity coalition's candidate Capriles, according to one person who viewed the privately commissioned poll.

It said the portion of undecided voters had declined slightly in May but still stood at a substantial 28.7% meaning there is a lot left to play for. The new Datanalisis survey was in line with most of the country's best-known pollsters, who give Chavez a double-digit lead with less than four months left until the ballot.

After three operations to remove two cancerous tumours in the last year, and lengthy absences in Cuba for treatment, Chavez has returned to the public limelight in the last two weeks with regular appearances on state TV and in public.

Although he is not walking much in public, he insists he is recovering and that he will crush Capriles on election day.

Capriles says the opinion polls are skewed and that his nationwide “house-by-house” campaign is gathering steam and putting him on course to unseat the socialist leader.

The Datanalisis poll showed Capriles up two percentage points from the previous month's survey and Chavez up 0.7 percentage points.

Categories: Politics, Latin America.

Tags: Chavez re-election, Henrique Capriles, Hugo Chávez, Venezuela.

Top Comments

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Forgetit87
But, ofc, this is not going to impede the Western press from screaming 'rigged polls' in October, even if the final results are found to be within independent pollsters' predictions. After all, they've pulled this same trick, intended to delegitimize disliked foreign leaders, on Putin and Ahmadinejad.
Jun 20th, 2012 - 02:41 am 0
mickey5hins
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/venezuela/9341341/Venezuela-demands-Germany-hand-back-35-ton-rock.html

Venezuela demands Germany hand back 35 ton rock
Jun 20th, 2012 - 06:12 pm 0
Boxer
I agree with Forgetit....my media (Western) has a shocking history of such behaviour while failing to foster broader democracy in their own countries. It is here that I must thank Chavez for introducing me to the reality that I live in (Australia) an oligarchy, as Venezuelans once did, with a media that represents such interests. This is shown by the situation the media is in in the UK atm and the wealthy individuals trying to buy the Australian media to silence critisism (see Gina Rinehart stories) of their mining activities.
It will not matter that the old Venezuelan oligarchy, ironically now a single party, will participate in elections while saying they have the abitlity to “gather steam” through a “house-by-house” campaign and then complain that there is no democracy if they lose.
There is no logic in even attempting this argument, except to say Western media will WRONGLY support their claims, making it seem true in some eyes....but not mine!!
Jun 25th, 2012 - 02:29 am 0

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