Venezuelans vote as Chavez likely to retain parliament

[Judi Lynn]

Venezuelans vote as Chavez likely to retain parliament
Sun Sep 26, 2010 5:15am GMT

By Daniel Wallis
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelans vote in a parliamentary election on Sunday with President Hugo Chavez expected to keep control of the National Assembly in a poll testing his support ahead of a presidential ballot in 2012.

Opposition parties in South America's biggest oil producer are guaranteed to make big gains, however, after boycotting the last legislative election five years ago.

The focus is on whether the opposition can take more than a third of the 165 seats up for grabs, which would mean the socialist leader would need support from his foes for major changes to laws or to make appointments to important institutions.

Chavez is not on the ballot but his larger-than-life personality has dominated the campaigns -- and exposed sharp political differences in a country with a huge gap between rich and poor, despite its vast oil and mineral wealth.

More:
http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE68P06620100926?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&rpc=401

[EFerrari]

1. Shocking. I've read for months that President Chavez is no longer popular.

:)

[gbscar]

2. Popularity is relative here.

I quote:

"His popularity is in the 40 percent to 50 percent range -- well below his highs of previous years but probably enough to ensure his ruling Socialist Party retains a majority."

Assuming, for the sake of discussion, that these figures are accurate...that Chavez may be less popular than he was before doesn't mean the opposition has become more popular. There are, certainly, people who might not like Chavez but still think the opposition is worse...or, for that matter, vice versa.

There's that and concerns about modifications made to existing electoral districts, which some have questioned as favoring the government in terms of distributing the number of seats.

At the very least, it would be interesting to compare the % of seats the PSUV wins with the % of the actual vote and see what kind of discrepancies turn out. They may have been overblown...or maybe not.

[EFerrari]

3. Popularity is relative everywhere.

And if those numbers are correct, that makes the president about as popular as Obama is here.

It will be interesting to see the results. I look forward to them.