Chavez favoured as Venezuelans prepare for vote

CARACAS, Venezuela, Dec 2 (Reuters) President Hugo Chavez looked set to win as Venezuelans prepared for a closely watched vote tomorrow on whether to give the anti-US leader six more years to wage his socialist ''revolution.'' Most polls show Chavez, at odds with Washington over his ties to Cuba and Iran, with a solid lead over rival Manuel Rosales, a state governor who has attacked the incumbent on crime and unemployment.

Rosales has mustered the opposition's most serious challenge to Chavez in years with populist promises to redistribute Venezuela's oil wealth and roll back policies he says are edging the OPEC country toward Cuban-style communism.

Election authorities dismissed worries over vote-tampering, and the opposition-aligned El Nacional newspaper reported that Sunday's election had more safeguards than a 2004 recall referendum, which critics said was rigged in favor of Chavez.

''There is no possibility of any fraud in the election,'' electoral council official Vicente Diaz told opposition-leaning El Universal newspaper in an interview published today.

An unfair use of government resources has tipped the campaign in Chavez's favour but the vote itself should be clean, especially because both candidates will field an army of election monitors, he added. Hundreds of international observers are also in the country.

Venezuela is sharply polarised. Many poor people applaud Chavez's spending of oil income on health and education while some upper- and middle-class voters say he is a fledgling dictator determined to follow the lead of his ally, Cuba's Fidel Castro.

The most recent opinion survey, commissioned by the state oil company with a US pollster, showed Chavez with a 19-point lead over Rosales.

Chavez's opponents worry he will turn increasingly authoritarian after he said he could abandon term limits and create a single party if re-elected. He has demanded troops and state oil workers remain loyal to his self-described revolution.

A Chavez victory would shore up his campaign to forge a regional alliance of leftist leaders to counter Washington's influence in Latin America. He applauded this week's victory by leftist Rafael Correa in Ecuador's presidential run-off.

A former paratrooper who led a botched coup six years before his 1998 election, Chavez says he is inspired by South American liberation hero Simon Bolivar to free Latin America from US-backed ''imperialist'' policies.

DEEPER REVOLUTION Street violence broke out before and after the 2004 referendum as opposition leaders claimed fraud. But international observers said the vote was fair.

Rosales, who recently drew hundreds of thousands of supporters onto the streets for his last Caracas march, says he will respect the results if they are transparent.

Since the referendum, opposition leaders have struggled to overcome splits and worries over an election authority dominated by Chavez loyalists. Opposition parties last year boycotted legislative elections and handed all 167 congressional seats to the president's allies.

''I will vote for Rosales even though I don't really like him. We are deciding here between an imperfect democracy and this famous 'revolution,' which is sectarian and only gives opportunities to Chavez supporters,'' said Lilian Perez, an economist in Caracas.

But the president's supporters, who fondly call him ''El Comandante,'' praise Chavez.

''Before we had nothing,'' said Christina Torre, who was shopping today at one of state-subsidised stores that Chavez opened.

''Hugo Chavez is the man for those left on the margins.'' REUTERS SRS BST0229