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."
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
EYEING A SOLUTION: In unusually critical remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump said he was ‘destroying Russia by not making a deal’ US President Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal with Ukraine, threatening tougher economic measures if Moscow does not agree to end the war. Trump’s warning in a social media post came as the Republican seeks a quick solution to a grinding conflict that he had promised to end before even starting his second term. “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
RSS