Opposition-linked poll: Chavez to lose referendum

CARACAS (Reuters) - A poll aligned with the opposition on Friday showed Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will likely lose a referendum two days away on whether he can run for reelection indefinitely.

Most other polls have shown a statistical tie between the "Yes" and "No" camps, putting the anti-U.S. president in the toughest vote fight of his political career over a constitutional overhaul that the opposition calls authoritarian.

Chavez said on Friday his polls say he will win Sunday's referendum by at least 10 points. That would be a much smaller victory margin than he is used to in almost yearly national votes, stretching back to his first election in 1998.

Hinterlaces -- an opposition-aligned polling company that predicted Chavez's landslide reelection a year ago -- said 55 percent of likely voters were set to vote against Chavez while 42 percent would vote "Yes."

The Hinterlaces poll could raise optimism among the opposition -- a mix of political parties, university students and business groups.

Chavez says the opposition plans to cry fraud if he wins by pointing to such pre-vote polls predicting his loss.

Investors' concerns that there could be political violence next week stemming from a disputed result has hurt Venezuela's debt and currency values ahead of the referendum.

The figures in the Hinterlaces poll, which had a large margin of error of 4 percentage points, may be skewed against Chavez because it was based on telephone interviews.

Spending freely on schools and clinics in shantytowns and rural villages, the president is vastly popular in poor areas which often do not have fixed line telephone networks.

Venezuelans vote in the referendum on a raft of constitutional changes that would also give Chavez the power to detain citizens without charge and censor the media if he declares an emergency.

Hinterlaces surveyed 1,642 voters November 26-29.

(Reporting by Enrique Andres Pretel, writing by Saul Hudson, editing by Vicki Allen)