Chavez Rival Maintains Advantage in Latest Consultores 21 Survey

Venezuelan opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski maintained his lead over President Hugo Chavez in the latest survey from Consultores 21, a Caracas- based polling company, less than three weeks before elections.

Capriles had 48.1 percent against 46.2 percent for Chavez in a poll taken at the end of August, Consultores 21 President Luis Christiansen said yesterday at a conference hosted by the Council of the Americas in New York. The survey of 1,000 people taken in the last two weeks of August had a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points, Christiansen said.

Chavez, who is seeking to extend almost 14 years in power with another six-year term, is facing his toughest electoral fight yet after his opponents set aside their differences and unified behind a single candidate. Capriles and Chavez are heading into the election with similar approval levels, Christiansen said.

“If we were to make a linear projection for the election, it would be that Capriles will maintain an advantage of 2.5 percent over Chavez,” he said.

Other polls favor Chavez. Chavez had 46.8 percent support compared with 34.2 percent for Capriles, according to a Datanalisis poll of 1,288 people taken between July 16 and Aug. 9.

The former paratrooper, who has undergone three operations since June 2011 to remove two tumors from his pelvic area, has managed to dispel doubts that he wouldn’t be fit enough to contest the elections, Christiansen said. That doesn’t mean that the issue of his cancer has completely disappeared, he said....

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