Approval of Venezuelan leader drops as crisis bites: poll

[Bacchus4.0]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-idUSKCN0XV2JD

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Venezuelans are suffering rampant shortages of products including bread and antibiotics, salary-destroying inflation, and increasingly frequent power and water cuts as the OPEC country's state-led model flounders.

Maduro, whom the opposition is vying to remove from office this year, saw his rating drop to 26.8 percent in March from 33.1 percent in February, according to a Datanalisis poll seen by Reuters.

While low compared with his charismatic mentor and predecessor, Hugo Chavez, Maduro's popularity remains above that of neighboring presidents including Colombia's Juan Manuel Santos and Brazil's Dilma Rousseff.

Still, some 68.9 percent of Venezuelans polled said Maduro should quit this year or be removed via a recall referendum before his term ends in 2019, up from 63.6 percent in February.

[Marksman_91]

1. Even the polls that favored Chavismo the most in the past say Maduro is unpopular

Don't see him winning the recall referendum at all. Even hardcore Chavistas are sick of his dumb face. There was actually a lady who had Chavez's face tattooed on her arm, and she was present at one of the booths to proudly sign for the referendum. People are not gonna have your support if their stomachs are hungry, or if they don't have any power to their homes.