Venezuela Election 2012 Polls Suspended Due to Election Law; Consultores 21 Polling Firm Criticized Ahead of Sunday's Election

Four days ahead of the Venezuelan election, opinion polls are no longer being published, due to election law.

According to Reuters, Venezuelan election law forbids the publication of polls a week before Election Day.

The news service added the election is "close" between incumbent Hugo Chavez and challenger Henrique Capriles Radonski.

As Latinos Post reported, the latest polls show Chavez ahead of Capriles by 10 to 15 points.

The poling firm Datanalisis has Chavez at 49 percent compared to Capriles' 39 percent, while The Province reported polls by Consultores 21 and Varianzas have Capriles "just ahead, and his number have inched up in others."

However, Erik Sperling of VenezuelaAnalysis.com questions the reliability of Consultores 21, which has been referred to as "respected" by ABC News, and the Wall Street Journal, to name a few.

The latest Consultores 21 poll shows Capriles in the lead with 47.7 percent to 45.9 percent for Chavez.

Sperling noted the "extremely poor record" Consultores 21 has in previous elections in Venezuela.

He wrote, "In the 2006 presidential election between Chavez and opposition candidate Manuel Rosales, Consultores maintained that Chavez had just a 13% lead over his opponent. Chavez won that contest with a nearly 26 percent margin over Rosales (62.8% to 36.9%)."

He believes the "grave errors" by Consultores 21 should be enough to put the polling firm out of business and is a "campaign tool" for opponents of Chavez.

This is not the first time polls have come under fire. Back in July, Latinos Post reported polls from Datanalisis were criticized for showed a decrease in Chavez's percentage.

State politicians criticized the polls.

Datanalisis' Director Luis Vicente Leon responded that only clients who paid for the survey received the numbers, which were obtained and published previously by news agencies including Reuters.

Ahead of Sunday's election, Chavez is calling for his supporters to vote early.

"It should be at 3 a.m. Get some nice coffee, some good chocolate, an early breakfast. We have to work very hard in the logistics, the deployment. Water, food for the troops, transport to the polls, to the voting centers," said Chavez during a campaign rally.

Latinos Post will have coverage of Sunday's Venezuelan election.