Poll: 59 percent of Venezuelans back Chávez

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Wednesday, 05.13.09
Poll: 59 percent of Venezuelans back Chávez
Associated Press

CARACAS -- President Hugo Chávez remains popular among nearly two-thirds of Venezuelans after winning a February referendum removing limits on reelection and he's feeling emboldened, a private pollster said Tuesday.

The socialist leader's popularity stood at 59 percent in March, just slightly down from the 61 percent recorded in February, according to a March 20-30 survey of 2,000 people by the Caracas-based pollster Datanalisis.

Results of the survey, which had a margin of error of 2.7 percentage points, weren't unveiled until this week because a group of businesses that paid for the poll had not authorized its release to the public.

Datanalisis said the latest figure is up from 51 percent in January, 2008.

Datanalisis Director Luis Vicente Leon said he believes the president's popularity ratings appears to have prompted him to enact more radical policies, including the government's recent moves to seize control of some privately-owned food processing plants.

''The radicalization process is the child of the increase in popularity,'' Leon said.

Chávez ordered the expropriation of a rice-processing plant owned by Minneapolis-based Cargill Inc. in March and National Guard troops occupied another rice processing plant owned by a Polar, one of Venezuela's largest companies, that same month.

The takeovers are part of a broader initiative aimed at stemming double-digit inflation by ensuring that companies do not flout regulations that require price-controlled items to comprise at least 70 percent of their output.

Nationwide inflation reached 31 percent last year -- the highest in Latin America. Venezuela's budget predicts inflation will be 15 percent for 2009.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/venezuela/story/1045913.html