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NEWS
Four Government-paid surveys smeared across the world in key media
Venezuelan
Government Prepares World to Accept Massive Fraud
Cuban-Venezuelan international PR and lobby in high gear previous to
Sunday's high-profile presidential elections, creating a spin that could
allow President Chavez to disavow unfavourable results.
International and domestic surveys that show opposition candidate Manuel
Rosales tied or ahead of Hugo Chavez are not reflected in American and
international media.
Only government-paid surveys that show Chavez with a dubious lead are
commented in international press, radio and TV.
AP, CNN, Spain's TVE and other media accused of coverage slanted in
favour of the Chavez government.
Opposition wary of tricks in an electoral system sandbagged by Chavez
loyalists and questionable machines.
A week ahead of Sunday's crucial Venezuelan Presidential election, many
serious surveys –international and national– show the race as being
either a tie or have opposition candidate Manuel Rosales ahead; these
surveys report fiery President Hugo Chavez' support as waning and
Rosales as surging quickly and starting to pull away from the incumbent
President.
However, the only surveys that are being printed in international
newspapers and commented on radio and TV around the world are four
surveys that show Chavez ahead by twenty or more points over Rosales.
What's really going on, why these seemingly inexplicable differences,
and who is the American and international public to believe?
Two weeks ago, respected American pollsters Penn Schoen & Berland
reported Chavez with 48% of the electorate and Rosales with 42%, but
with Chavez trending downward and Rosales surging, thus predicting a
Rosales victory on December 3rd. In his presentation of the survey
results, Douglas Schoen described the method used, with anonymous
respondents approached on the street and handed printed questionnaires
which were filled in and returned in a way that guaranteed the person's
anonymity. In explaining why the company had adopted this system, Schoen
described a "fear factor" that had appeared for the first time in
Venezuela, and that if not taken into account seriously distorted the
results. Mr. Schoen asserts that this fear factor is not at all present
in Mr. Chavez' backers, only in opposition voters.
A poll conducted in the first half of November by Gaither International
–the surveyors that as early as 1997 predicted Chavez' 1998 election
victory– showed Chavez at 52% and Rosales at 44.3%, but again with
Chavez falling fast and Rosales surging. A company spokesman reported,
also, that for the first time they had found tension and fear
surrounding a Venezuelan presidential election, with many citizens
considering that they might be victims of government reprisals if it
were known that they wanted to vote for Mr. Rosales.
The Hannah Arndt Observatory places the election at a dead heat, again
emphasizing that their pollsters had to overcome an important fear
factor in order to weed out an approximation to the truth of what
Venezuelans citizens really are thinking.
Angus-Reid Global Monitor reports a survey by respected pollsters Survey
Fast –whose main clients are the Venezuelan banking community– as having
Mr. Chavez leading with 49%, followed closely by Mr. Rosales with 47.6%,
with Chavez falling fast and Rosales rising equally fast, and predicting
a Rosales victory in December by over five percentage points.
Highly respected Swiss-Venezuelan pollster Alfredo Keller, president of
AKSA Partners, reported at the beginning of this month that Hugo Chavez'
support was 52%, down from over 65% two months earlier, with Rosales at
48% and rising. Mr. Keller reports that Mr. Chavez' hard-line support
was down 9 points to 22% and falling, while Rosales' was 29% and
growing, predicting that a Rosales victory on December 3rd was very
possible.
And, CE.CA., another respected Venezuelan pollster, reported last week
that their polls show Rosales ahead for the first time, at 45.8%, with
Chavez trailing at 35.3%. Once again, as in all of the previous polls,
fear has been found to be a major factor hindering the freedom of
_expression by Venezuelans.
Contrasting with these poll results are those of four polls recently
unveiled: Zogby International, Evans-McDonough, one reported as being
authored by Madrid's Complutense University, and AP-Ipsos. All of these
polls have been loudly celebrated by the Chavez campaign, but have
become highly suspect for different reasons.
The poll by Zogby International, a firm run by John and James Zogby, is
suspect because James Zogby participated two years ago –with Noam
Chomsky– in a forum where one of the themes to be discussed was the
"defense" of the Chavez regime. The Zogby brothers have been identified
with extreme issues: John Zogby signed a New York Times advertisement on
March 13, 1988, headlined: "The Time Has Come: End All Aid to Apartheid
Israel!", declared that "Israel is an apartheid state, found on pillage
and predicated on exclusivity," and that it has "a quintessentially
racist character". The ad proposed "dismantling the apartheid state and
replacing it with a democratic secular Palestine." Interestingly, Chavez
recently retired his ambassador to Israel in protest for the recent war
in southern Lebanon. To date, Zogby has not revealed who paid for the
Venezuelan poll.
Evans-McDonough's pollsters did reveal who paid for their survey:
Venezuela state oil company PDVSA, whose President became universally
known last month for an infamous speech telling his state oil company
workers that the whole institution was pro-Chavez, that they were "red,
red" (Chavez party colors) and that anybody who wasn't in agreement
should leave or be literally kicked out.
Regarding these two polls, Investors Business Daily stated the
following:
"In another sign that he [Chavez] won't go willingly, the Venezuelan
government seems to be sponsoring pro-Chavez polls of dubious merit. One
is from Zogby, which gave Chavez an odd double-digit lead over Rosales
but refused to say who paid for it. Now there's a new one by a San
Francisco pollster, Evans-McDonough, which claims Chavez is 22 points
ahead of Rosales, countering other polls. It may be reported in the
mainstream media as news, but Evans-McDonough has been in the pay of
Venezuela's government in the past. The San Francisco Chronicle profiled
it two years ago as a Chavez supporter. This survey was paid for by
PDVSA, the oil firm where workers were intimidated into voting for
Chavez for fear of losing their jobs."
Madrid's Complutense University disavowed the survey publicized as
theirs, saying only that one of their professors, Carolina Bescansa, was
involved. Ms. Bescansa was recently hired and paid by the Venezuelan
government to do an investigation on "health and drugs". An
investigation has turned up that the person who ordered and paid for the
survey is Roberto Viciano-Pastor, a member of the Spanish Communist
Party who was under hire as an "advisor" to Venezuela's Congress in the
critical two-year period between 1999 and 2000, when the constitutional
assembly forged Venezuela's present constitution. Not surprisingly, Mr.
Viciano-Pastor was seen at Bolivia president Evo Morales' inauguration,
and local press reported that Peruvian leftist presidential candidate
Ollanta Humala "was greeted by Spanish citizen Roberto Viciano-Pastor,
advisor to Venezuela's National Assembly and an extremist who has
defended the Basque separatist movement". During that trip, Mr. Viciano-Pastor
served as host, guide and advisor to Humala, a Chavez ally, who was soon
to be defeated by now-President Alan García.
The Associated Press-Ipsos poll is the most curious one of all,
presenting the race as a blow-out with Chavez at 59% and Rosales at a
lowly 27%. William H. Klemme, in his article Fear Factor Biases
Associated Press Poll in Venezuela, reports that the AP-IPSOS poll was
based on face-to-face interviews in people's homes, differentiating it
from the Penn, Schoen and Berland poll method. According to an
investigation conducted by Per Kurowski, once inside the person's home,
Ipsos asked a detailed series of questions about Chavez government
projects:
14) Now I'm going to read you a list of projects, programs and
initiatives by Hugo Chavez's government. Please tell me if you have
heard of each one of these [different government-sponsored social
programs]: Misión Ribas, Misión Madres de Barrio, Misión Vuelvan Caras,
Misión Barrio Adentro, Misión Habitat, Misión Milagro and Misión Mercal.
14 a) Which of these projects, programs and initiatives of Hugo Chavez's
government do you consider most important for you and your family? And
in second place? And in third place?
14 b) Have you or someone in your family benefited from these programs?
14 c) Aside from yourself or someone in your family, do you know anyone
who has benefited from these programs?
Immediately following these questions –made in the person's home, in a
national environment of fear and mistrust–, the pollster then asked for
what candidate they were thinking of voting!
The only justification for a mistake of this magnitude would be that the
Ipsos pollsters were unaware of this fear factor. However, those same
citizens' answers to their questions numbers 26, 27 and 28 disavow any
such ignorance:
26. 54% expressed some distrust in how the votes will be counted (30%
were not very or not at all confident).
27. 58% expressed some concern about that their vote will not be kept
secret (31% were not very or not at all confident).
28. 71% expressed some concern about that people could face reprisals
for their vote in the upcoming elections (57% were somewhat or very
concerned).
Curiously, only these pro-Chavez surveys have been picked up and
reported widely in American and international media. Organizations such
as AP, Reuters, CNN, BBC and Spain's TVE, to name just a few, constantly
refer to Chavez' "huge lead", and either neglect or downplay the other,
serious and scientific surveys, creating a belief that the Venezuelan
presidential election is a shoo-in for incumbent President Chavez, when
the truth is quite the contrary: The President is in big trouble.
Is the Chavez government simply whistling in the dark, are they trying
to influence voters putting themselves as winners when reality is quite
different, or is there some other agenda going on? In response to these
questions, the Investors Business Daily article previously cited states
the following:
"The potential aim of all this is to put enough polls out there to
suggest that Chavez is popular, letting him get away with outrageous
fraud. Should a fraud-tainted election happen on Dec. 3 and cause an
outcry, Chavez could point to government-sponsored pre-election polls as
cover for the inevitable outrage in the streets."
Regarding the electoral climate surrounding the elections, Gustavo
Coronel, a Venezuelan oil expert and political analyst, states,
"…the regime feels terrified of the results of the election. Chavez
controls four of the five members of the National Electoral Council and
for the last two years has been beefing up the electoral registry with
foreigners who will vote for him in exchange for quick nationalization.
Colombian narco-terrorists have been known to be registered and have
voted for Chavez in past elections. The company that supplied the
electronic voting machines, Smartmatic, received a controversial
contract from Chavez and has had a murky history. It is currently being
investigated in the U.S. The electoral registry is deeply corrupted,
having at one point in time over 39,000 voters more than 100 years old
and 2,000 living at the same address. Chavez utilizes the state-owned
media at his total discretion, while limiting the time of the opposition
candidate in private stations and barring him from using the state-owned
media that should be available, by law, to all citizens".
Investors Business Daily concludes:
"Make no mistake: Chavez's lies and intimidation don't sound like the
actions of a political leader who's secure in a coming re-election
victory. As vast crowds gather in the streets of Caracas, it's going to
get more important to note their role in countering a potentially rigged
vote in a Potemkin democracy that could only fool election observer
Jimmy Carter."
What seems obvious to independent observers is that the Cuban-Venezuelan
propaganda machine is in full swing internationally. These international
"pollsters" are being used to create a climate where international
public opinion would disregard any opposition claim that the election
process was fraudulent, if and when Chavez faces defeat on December 3rd
and decides to use his clout within the Electoral Council to
electronically switch enough votes to give him the victory.
Examples of the effectiveness of this international propaganda machine
can be seen in the way some report the Rosales and Chavez political
rallies this past weekend in Caracas: Independent observers place
Rosales supporters at 950,000, and Chavez' at 225,000.
CNN's Spanish network channel reported the Rosales rally with impressive
television shots showing the huge mass of people, spoke of hundreds of
thousands of people, only to finish ascertaining that Chavez was ahead
by thirty points in the surveys.
The Associated Press included the following in its account:
"The crowd appeared to number in the hundreds of thousands. Organizers
claimed more than 1 million people attended. …Despite the revived
opposition movement, Chavez remains hugely popular among the poor,
especially those who see benefits from oil-funded social programs
ranging from free health care to heavily subsidized government grocery
stores… Ernesto Galindez, a 58-year-old butcher who backs Chavez, said
he was surprised by the size of Saturday's march, but predicted Rosales
would lose. 'They are going to have to wait six more years because
Chavez is still very strong, and he's not going anywhere,' said Galindez,
grinning."
AP's coverage of the Chavez rally the next day included the following:
"Sunday's rally was the largest in support of Chavez since campaigning
began in August and appeared to number in the hundreds of thousands.
There were no official estimate by police…His rally came a day after
hundreds of thousands of Rosales supporters flooded a major highway in
one of the largest anti-Chavez demonstrations in years. Rosales, a state
governor who favors a free-market economy, trailed Chavez by a wide
margin in an AP-Ipsos poll earlier this month."
On November 4th, Investors Business Daily, AP and Reuters had markedly
distinct angles to report that day's massive Rosales rally:
IBD reported as follows: "Not since 2002 has Caracas seen the likes of
Saturday's 15-mile presidential campaign rally for Chavez's rival,
Manuel Rosales, ahead of the Dec. 3 election. Dragging through the
capital, the march crossed through the eastern and western slums that
are supposedly Chavez's political stronghold.
As many as half a million people showed up, one out of 12 residents of
Caracas, making Chavez's claims of continuing popularity farcical. The
march was a big sign of voter rejection of Chavez and his "revolution."
It's telling that there have been no comparable pro-Chavez rallies of
this size. And don't think Chavez isn't worried.
The mood in the Caracas streets reflects a Nov. 2 AKSA Partners poll
putting Chavez just four points ahead of Rosales, 52-48, with momentum
shifting to the challenger."
Reuters titled "Huge march in Venezuela for Chavez opponent", speaking
of "hundreds of thousands of people" that marched in Caracas… ; "Most
polls released in recent weeks show Rosales far behind Chavez despite
having united a fractured opposition";
AP titled: "Opposition's top presidential challenger leads march across
Venezuela's capital", speaking of a march "drawing tens of thousands
into the streets". The AP reporter smugly interjected, "Still, a recent
survey by Zogby International showed Chavez with a 59 percent to 24
percent lead over Rosales. The face-to-face survey of 800 registered
voters was conducted between Oct. 1 and Oct. 16 and had a 3.5 percent
margin of error."
However, Reuters also has fallen into the Chavez survey trap. On
November 24th it reported the following:
"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has 60 percent support from likely
voters ahead of a December 3 election, outstripping his rival Manuel
Rosales by 29 points, a poll said on Friday. The survey, conducted by
U.S. pollster Zogby International in collaboration with the University
of Miami, surveyed 800 likely voters between November 12-18 and had a
margin of error of 3.5 percentage points. Zogby showed Rosales slightly
narrowing the gap with Chavez from its previous survey, which was
conducted between October 1-16 and showed the president with a 35-point
lead. The poll is generally in line with most independent surveys that
show Chavez has a clear lead."
Spanish TVE, which Olympus Consulting accused of slanting its coverage
towards Kerry in the past U.S. Presidential campaign, and of only
reporting surveys that showed Kerry tied or leading President Bush,
recently aired a program that spoke of Chavez' supposed "huge lead" in
terms nothing but favourable towards his campaign.
Along with Fidel Castro's undying friendship and strategic might, Hugo
Chavez inherited a potent and well-greased Cuban PR and lobbying
apparatus well experienced in denying the undeniable and defending the
indefensible. This apparatus is now working at full steam, because Hugo
Chavez has come to realize that eight years of government with few
results at great cost not only have wasted away the passion the poor had
for him for so long, but have turned a majority of them adamantly
against him.
He's scared. He controls the electoral council. What does he do? For
now, he's pouring the coal onto the international PR machine, trying to
convince the world that he can't lose.
investigation and reporting by
John Salas and Thor Halvorssen
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