Chavez rival touts poll results showing close race
By FABIOLA SANCHEZ
Associated Press
CARACAS, Venezuela -- The opposition candidate challenging President
Hugo Chavez in Venezuela's presidential ballot said Monday that he
trusts the results of an opinion poll that indicates the two men are
running head-to-head.
Henrique Capriles, a state governor who was chosen in a February
opposition primary, said he has his own numbers but that the results of
the poll by the firm Consultores 21 seem accurate.
"Personally, I believe in Consultores. I've been looking at Consultores'
polls for many years," Capriles told The Associated Press.
The firm said last week that 46 percent of the Venezuelans it surveyed
said they intend to vote for Chavez in the October election and 45
percent backed Capriles. It said 9 percent were undecided in the poll,
which questioned about 2,000 people.
Saul Cabrera, the polling firm's vice president, said the survey had an
error margin of more than 2 percentage points and was financed by a
group of clients including private businesses.
National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, an ally of the socialist
president, discounted the poll. He said it seemed to have been conducted
"in a restaurant in Las Mercedes," a posh Caracas neighborhood.
"It's impossible, and they know it, for there to be a technical tie
between Comandante Chavez and the candidate of the bourgeoisie," Cabello
told an outdoor gathering of Chavez's supporters.
He cited other polls touted by the government that say Chavez holds a
sizable lead. He claimed the president has a "20-point advantage."
Such disputes over poll results appear likely to heat up in the months
ahead as Capriles attempts to unseat a president who has been in office
more than 13 years.
Capriles said at a news conference Monday that he plans to continue
making door-to-door visits to neighborhoods despite a March 4 incident
in which gunfire rang out while he was visiting a traditionally
pro-Chavez neighborhood. A young man who supports Capriles was injured
in the shooting.
Capriles strongly criticized Chavez for saying publicly that the
government had received word of a plan to attack the opposition
candidate, yet didn't release any evidence of such a plot.
"Where is the information? What's the aim of that? To generate fear?"
Capriles said.
Capriles also criticized the president for traveling to Cuba to undergo
cancer treatment instead of using a Venezuelan hospital.
"The message you're sending when you have to go away (is) that you can't
be attended to in your own country. It's a terrible, negative message.
You're the person who has the greatest responsibility," Capriles said.
He said that if elected, he would build a better health system "so that
any Venezuelan, no matter the position, whether head of state ... or
electrician," will have access to quality care.
Chavez has dismissed such criticisms. He said Saturday as he left on his
latest trip to Cuba that although Venezuela has excellent hospitals, he
is undergoing radiation therapy in Havana this week because that was
where his cancer was diagnosed in June and where he has undergone three
operations, including two surgeries that removed tumors.
The president has expressed optimism he will overcome cancer and win
another six-year term in the Oct. 7 elections.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/26/2715975/chavez-rival-touts-poll-results.html
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