Politics
Only 34 percent of Latin Americans believe that Venezuela has a positive influence in the region. This percentage is lower than 50 percent in 16 of the countries participating in the yearly poll, with the exception of Dominican Republic (66 percent) and Venezuela itself (54 percent), according to annual poll 2009 Latinobarómetro, conducted by a non-profit NGO based in Santiago, Chile.

On the contrary, the positive image of the United States in Latin America strengthened from 58 percent in 2008 to 74 percent in 2009, during the first year of Barack Obama's administration, as reported by Efe.

Additionally, in all the surveyed countries, more than half of the population has a positive perception of the US. This percentage is higher than 80 percent in several Central American countries (, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama and Honduras), and in the Dominican Republic and Chile.

In contrast, the countries with a less positive perception of the United States are Argentina (61 percent), Bolivia (62 percent) and Venezuela (64 percent).

A total of 20,204 people participated in the poll entitled "Latin America looks at the world," which was conducted in 18 countries of the region from September 21 to October 26, 2009, with a margin of error lower than 3 percent.

According to the poll, three out of four Latin Americans consider that their country has good relations with the US, a 10 percent increase compared to the 2008 survey, and the highest increase since 1997, when the pollster started to measure this variable.
People who have a better opinion of the ties between their country and the United States come from the Dominican Republic (94 percent), Costa Rica (92 percent), Uruguay (91 percent), Chile (89 percent), El Salvador (87 percent), Colombia (85 percent), Panama and Brazil (both with 85 percent.)

On the contrary, the three most critical countries of the relations with the US are Venezuela (32 percent), Bolivia (42 percent), and Argentina (57 percent).

In general, almost two thirds of Latin Americans (64 percent) believe that the US has a positive influence in the region. In all countries, this percentage is higher than 50 percent with the exception of the data compiled in Argentina (41 percent) and Paraguay (46 percent.)

Translated by Gerardo Cárdenas