The until recently unknown Edmundo González Urrutia – who is running for the Venezuelan presidential elections backed by María Corina Machado, an opposition leader who was prevented from participating in the race – has a voting intention already close to 50%, according to the average of the polls that have been published so far. For his part, the official candidate and current president, Nicolás Maduro, has climbed some points, and his support levels range between 22% and 25%.
Saúl Cabrera, from the firm Consultores 21, affirms that the elections of this July 28 are on the way to polarizing again: “González Urrutia already has almost all the support that María Corina had, and can continue to grow.” Thanks to cell phones, social networks and WhatsApp groups they have promoted González Urrutia, who went, in a very few days, from being a total unknown to being fully identified by the majority of the population. Cabrera comments that “minority candidates and judicialized parties have not taken off, they remain on small and similar margins,” in reference to the parties that pretend to be opposition, but are under the wing of Chavismo. “I think the Government did not succeed in this attempt to fragment the vote,” he adds.
Félix Seijas, political analyst, actuary and director of the polling firm Delphos, agrees that the opposition candidate has room to continue gaining support, “especially among the undecided.” When analyzing the official candidate, he points out that “Maduro has been progressively climbing points in acceptance since last year.” That is to say, his campaign, which has been joined by the president of the Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, and the vice president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Diosdado Cabello, has had an impact. “Right now it is close to 25%. But kind of stuck around that digit, at least right now.”
The dissemination and analysis of polls, a completely natural event in any democratic electoral event, has become a kind of public taboo in Venezuela, due to the irritation that their content produces to certain Chavista officials. In a press conference held last week, Rodríguez denied the pollsters that portrayed the country’s political reality (the same ones that predicted all of Hugo Chávez’s victories in the past), and added that the dissemination of those numbers was part of a calculated plan to denounce fraud in advance and ignore Venezuelan institutions.
“We have already warned: anyone who does not know the electoral results or disturbs the public peace, before, during, or after the elections, goes to prison. Then don’t say you weren’t warned,” he declared. It is very common that, in the information confusion of social networks, data from unknown polling firms circulate that place Nicolás Maduro comfortably leading opinion polls. These numbers are posted and broken down in the opinion spaces of the Venezuelan state television station.
Controlling the content of private television stations and linking the television signal several times a week, with an invasive and unequal deployment in the promotion of its slogans, the Chavista leadership deploys, at the same time, a campaign in which it denounces “the censorship” of which this movement is a victim on social networks. “If something is very clear, it is that María Corina Machado took to the streets, her leadership was out of the hands of the Government,” says Jesús Seguías, director of the firm Dataincorp, journalist and political analyst, traditional critic of Machado’s procedures.
For Seguías, the guardianship that Machado exercises over González Urrutia, however, is going to make the transition even more difficult. “The rallies that Machado has organized during this time have been massive, in some towns even historic in size. That cannot be denied. It is a process that we had not seen, in remote places that were previously Chavistas, where the national crisis punishes hardest. “There is a very deep desire for change among Venezuelans.”
“The enormous difference between both candidates in the polls does not mean that this will be the result on July 28,” Seguías qualifies, as a warning. “The Government is managing the current scenario with enormous precision because it knows what is at stake. Machado’s leading leadership places many impediments to the possibility of a transition to democracy. If the person who leads the process is Machado and González Urrutia is not able to guarantee anything by himself, then there will be no transition. Any misstep by the opposition will throw them off the path.”
triumphalism
A few days ago, in statements that were widely commented on, the economist and political analyst Luis Vicente León, managing partner of the Datanalisis firm, warned the democratic field about the existing “triumphantism”, stating that the task of electorally defeating Chavismo in no way way it was ready, and that no one should be confused with the size of the opposition demonstrations, since these have already taken place in the past, without results.
León stated that it is “a rotten lie” to say that the advantage between the opposition forces and the Chavistas is so asymmetrical in favor of the former, and asked to take into account other variables, which according to him should not be underestimated, such as organization, roots and discipline of the Chavista ranks throughout the national geography; the institutional control they have in this framework; abstention rates; the role of the undecided and the votes that the minority candidates may take.
Meanwhile, in the midst of enormous publicity, the Chavista leadership continues its tours around the country with an optimistic tone, amidst a barrage of spots in which its militants also behave as if victory were assured. Diosdado Cabello has no doubts about this, who has several times predicted “an overwhelming, splendid victory.”
If participation levels increase, the opposition’s chances could rise, but they could become more complicated if the trend is the opposite. “The interpretations of our studies are made by calculating, at least, a semi-competitive scenario,” says Saúl Cabrera. “So far, 70% of the voters consulted are willing or considering participating.” During the first week of June, meanwhile, rumors have been increasing about another institutional maneuver to remove the opposition candidate from the race by invoking some legal formalism through the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice. Less than two months before the elections, anything can happen in Venezuela.
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