Chavez heads to Venezuela re-election -exit poll

CARACAS, Venezuela, Dec 4 (Reuters) Anti-US Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez headed to a clear re-election victory over his united opposition rival, a government-paid exit poll showed, but the opposition rejected such data.

Chavez won 58 per cent of the vote, while Manuel Rosales, governor of an oil-producing province, trailed with 40 per cent, said Evans/McDonough Co, a US pollster commissioned by the state oil ompany yesterday.

If the exit poll proves right, Chavez, 52, would have a strong majority to press his self-styled socialist revolution at home and forge an anti-US front in Latin America to counter what he calls the superpower's ''imperialism.'' A scandal immediately erupted over the exit poll results.

The opposition accused a government-run television station of broadcasting poll data in violation of a ban that prevents publication in Venezuela until election authorities start announcing official results.

''They are false and manipulated figures,'' Julio Montoya, a senior aide to Rosales told reporters. It was not clear if he was referring to the Evans poll or other government figures.

Although Evans/McDonough is linked to the government, its surveys have credibility in Venezuela because it has been transparent about its methodology and it precisely predicted the outcome of a 2004 recall referendum that Chavez won.

The company interviewed more than 400,000 voters around the country as a basis for its exit poll, which had a margin of error of 1.5 percentage points.

Chavez, a close ally of Cuban President Fidel Castro, has vowed to use a new six-year mandate to scrap presidential term limits and create a single party that he expects to lead in power for decades.

He also aims to take further state control of the OPEC country's top industry -- oil.

Chavez's popularity has been buoyed because of his free spending of the country's oil bonanza on clinics and schools in a nation where more than two million people live on less than one dollar a day.

''INTO THE STREET'' At Rosales's campaign headquarters, angry supporters chanted ''into the streets'' in a sign that some in the opposition could hold demonstrations to protest the results.

But hundreds of backers of Chavez, whose campaign slogan was ''red, really red'' to reflect his socialist credentials, danced salsa in an upmarket Caracas neighborhood that has been a political battleground.

''Rosales's butt ended up red, really red after the whipping we gave him,'' said Iraida Martinez, a 39-year-old nurse.

Rosales, 53 and a father of 10, draws his main support from the middle and upper classes.

While he lacks Chavez's charisma, he ran a disciplined campaign that exposed some weaknesses for the incumbent, such as Venezuelans' anger at rampant crime and their fears he wants to drive the country toward Cuba-style communism.

Chavez, in power since 1999, has accused Rosales of planning to cry fraud if he loses and try to create a political crisis to topple him. Rosales denies the charge and says he will accept the result if the election is fair.

Teodoro Petkoff, one of the most respected figures in the opposition, said the voting was carried out in a ''satisfactory'' manner and when irregularities emerged they were generally addressed by the electoral authorities.

The Organisation of American States, which fielded dozens of election observers, applauded the ''massive and peaceful'' vote.

REUTERS SRS BST0730