CARACAS—President Hugo Chavez faces his first ballot box defeat with Venezuelans increasingly turning against a constitutional overhaul that would scrap term limits for his presidency, a new poll showed on Monday.
Pointing to a swing against Chavez, the "Yes" and "No" camps are in a technical tie among likely voters ahead of Sunday's vote, according to the survey by Caracas company Hinterlaces, an opposition supporter.
The poll comes after a recent survey by an independent pollster showed Chavez has lost an early lead in a vote for a constitutional overhaul that also declares the OPEC nation socialist and allows him to censure media in emergencies.
Chavez, who refuses to scrap term limits for other officials, would have to leave office in 2013 without the law change.
But pollsters say Chavez remains popular and could still win by activating a state-backed get-out-the-vote machinery that in the past has helped secure resounding election wins.
Forty-six percent of Venezuelans who said they will vote on Sunday plan to vote "No" while 45 percent will vote "Yes," a three-point swing since a poll earlier this month, Hinterlaces said.
The result fell within the margin of error of 4 percentage points and was based on 1,333 telephone interviews from Nov. 20-24.
On Saturday, one of the country's most prestigious pollsters, Datanalisis, also showed a swing against Chavez. It said the "No" vote had a 10-point lead.
Unrest in Venezuela
The Hinterlaces poll also showed voter abstention falling to 25 percent, a decline of 14 percentage points in the last few weeks, and the number of undecided voters shrinking to 11 percent from 24 percent.
At an average of once a year, Chavez has coasted to victory in national votes, including when he first won office in 1998.
Sweeteners in this year's reform such as a shorter workday are popular, especially with his majority poor backers.
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