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Surveys find support for Chavez declining sharply

Public support for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's government has significantly declined, two polls published on Tuesday found.

Around 34 percent of respondents said they supported Chavez's government, down from a high of 67 percent in early 2005, to the lowest level in five years, a quarterly survey of 2,000 Venezuelans by Caracas pollster Datos found.

The poll was published by the Caracas-based newspaper El Nacional, which said it had a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points and was carried out last month in cities and towns representing 75 percent of Venezuela's population.

It was unclear who paid for the poll or how the questionnaire was structured. Pollsters at Datos could not be reached for comment.

Another survey, by Venezuelan pollster Alfredo Keller, showed that 37 percent of Venezuelans questioned identified themselves as Chavez supporters last month, down from 50 percent in the middle of last year.

That poll, published on Tuesday in the Caracas-based newspaper El Universal, surveyed 1,200 people and had a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points. Keller said nine businesses had funded the survey, but he declined to identify them and released only select parts of the questionnaire.

Chavez's government had no immediate response.

Polls have consistently shown that rampant crime is a major concern to Venezuelans. Double-digit inflation has also accelerated and sporadic shortages of milk and other food products persist.

Mark Weisbrot, codirector of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, was skeptical of the polls' results, citing Chavez's long-standing popularity and the growth of the country's oil-rich economy.

"Obviously Chavez has been affected by these food shortages," he said.

Weisbrot, who has supported Chavez's policies, said he believed the government would solve those problems.

Another Venezuelan pollster, Luis Vicente Leon, director of the public opinion firm Datanalisis, said his own polling suggested that after a decline at the end of last year, Chavez's popularity stabilized "at levels that are still high."
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