Poll: 59 percent of Venezuelans back Chavez

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
President Hugo Chavez remains popular among nearly two-thirds of Venezuelans after winning a February referendum removing limits on re-election and he's feeling emboldened, a private pollster said Tuesday. The socialist leader's popularity stood at 59 percent in March, just slightly down from the 61 percent recorded in February, according to a March 20-30 survey of 2,000 people by the Caracas-based pollster Datanalisis. Results of the survey, which had a margin of error of 2.7 percentage points, weren't unveiled until this week because a group of businesses that paid for the poll had not authorized its release to the public.