Study: Venezuela’s Chavez 4th Most Popular President in the Americas

[Peace Patriot]

Study: Venezuela’s Chavez 4th Most Popular President in the Americas

By EWAN ROBERTSON (September 24, 2012

Mérida, 24th September 2012 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is the 4th most popular president in the Americas, according to a new study of presidential approval ratings in the region.

The study, by Mexican polling firm Consulta Mitofsky, gives President Chavez a “high” approval rating of 64%, gaining 6 percentage points since the firm’s last study and jumping up the table of presidential popularity levels.

The findings come less than two weeks before Chavez seeks re-election on October 7 against right-wing opponent Henrique Capriles Radonski.

According to the study, which measured the approval ratings of 20 leaders in the Americas by compiling public opinion polls from their respective countries, Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa is the most popular president in the Americas with an “outstanding” approval rating of 80%.

“Rafael Correa repeats his first place with 80% (a point less than his previous evaluation), maintaining the approval with which his presidency began almost five years ago,” the ‘Approval of Leaders: America and the World’ report stated.

He is followed by Maurico Funes of El Salvador and Guatemalan president Otto Perez, on 72% and 69% respectively.

Chavez and Correa are joined at the top of the popularity table by other presidents considered left or centre left, with Brazil’s Dilma Roussef on 5th with 62% approval, and Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega on 7th place with a popularity of 59%.

Meanwhile, two months ahead of his re-election bid against Republican rival Mitt Romney, US President Barack Obama placed 10th in the study, receiving a “medium” approval rating of 49%. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was classed on a “very low” popularity of 37%, putting him down on 16th place.

The study highlights a north-south divide, with South American presidents enjoying an average approval of 50%, against 44% for leaders from the North of the hemisphere.

Many rightist presidents have dropped in popularity since the earlier 2012 study by Consulta Mitofsky, and find themselves on the bottom half of the table. Colombian president Juan Manual Santos still figures on the top half of the table with 54% approval, yet has dropped 13 percentage points and has lost his “high” approval rating.

Furthermore, Mexico’s Felipe Calderon placed 11th (46%), while Paraguayan President Federico Franco and Chilean President Sebastian Piñera share 17th place on 36%. Franco was came to power through an “institutional coup” in June by the Paraguayan Senate, and is less popular than deposed leftist president Fernando Lugo, who had 44% popularity in August 2011.

However, the findings aren’t all good news for South America’s “pink tide” governments, with 12th, 13th, and 14th places going to Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez (43%), Bolivia’s Evo Morales (41%) and Peru’s Ollanta Humala (40%) respectively.

The last places in the poll are occupied by the presidents of Honduras and Costa Rica, on approval ratings of 14% and 13%. The full study in Spanish can be accessed here.

This work is licensed under a Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives Creative Commons license.

http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/7279
(my emphasis)

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Imagine an incompetent 'dictator' being so popular among those stupid peasants in Venezuela!

Har-har!

Seriously, folks, this study of recent approval ratings merits some study itself. Personally, my alarm bells get all jangly whenever I see the name "Mitofsky" in connection with polls. (Mitofsky's U.S. polling firm rigged the 2004 exit polls to match Karl Rove's numbers--after a smart techie got a screen shot of the real results.) (Kerry won.) However, assuming that things are generally more transparent and democratic in Latin America (how else would all these leftist leaders be presidents of their countries?), and assuming that Mitofsky-Mexico is honest (and, anyway, this study is averaging ALL polls--hard to rig the numbers in that case), it has some interesting results.

To anyone who is able to ignore corporate news propaganda and pay attention to the real world, Chavez's continued big popularity is no surprise. The 'stupid peasants' in Venezuela know a "New Deal" when they see one and are not about to give it up in favor of the USAID's stealth candidate.

Dilma Rousseff, natch! (Boy, did that amazing woman surprise everybody!) Correa, 80%? Wow! According to the corporate press, there are nothing but riots and discontent in Ecuador. (What's wrong with this picture?)

Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua) and Mauricio Funes (El Salvador)--no big surprise there, that they are quite popular--though this must frost the asses of the corporate press, the CIA and the Miami Mafia. (How many people did the U.S. and its death squads kill to prevent the Sandinistas and the FMLN from running those countries "of, by and for" the people?)

The dismal numbers of the coup presidents (Honduras, Paraguay) are no surprise. (That anybody could get real numbers in Honduras is something of a surprise, though. Rightwing death squads running rampant there, killing leftists and journalists--not to mention the DEA killing Indigenous tribespeople to stop them shipping cocaine in their canoes. Par for the course in a U.S. client state. But Hondurans are a very brave people--hard to shut them up--and apparently burned Mitofsky-Mexico's ears with their views of the present regime.)

Otto Perez (Guatemala) being popular is a surprise. But there, I suspect that rightwing intimidation might be working. The U.S. (Reagan) approved the slaughter of TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND Mayan villagers in Guatemala in the 1980s. Civic life has hardly recovered from that slaughter. Guatemalans seem to lack the spirit and the organization of grass movements elsewhere in Latin America. They are extremely poor and disorganized (similar to Paraguay) and may very well fear strangers showing up at the door with clipboards--and NOT reveal their true views. One other possible factor: Perez has joined Santos (Colombia) in calling for the legalization of drugs. Although I think that this is a Big Pharma game, Perez's views on drug legalization could have bumped his numbers. (Guatemalans must be as sick to death of the U.S. "war on drugs" as Mexicans are.)

The big surprise to me, in these polls, is the declined popularity of Evo Morales (Bolivia) and Cristina Fernandez (Argentina) and the struggle that Ollanta Humala is having in Peru. I suspect that the new U.S. strategy of "divide and conquer," with regard to the rather awesome new leftist leadership and region-wide leftist coalition in South America (and into Central America) may be at work, in these countries--i.e., a strategy of picking off the weakest countries first. We saw it in its rawest form in Honduras and Paraguay (USAID-designed coup d'etats). But there are subtler ways to destroy leftist leaders and overthrow rule "of, by and for" the people. Financial and economic manipulation and punishment. Infiltration of dissident groups. Creation of disorder. Corporate news propaganda, day in, day out. Infiltration of police and militaries. Bribery. USAID "training" and funding of the RW opposition. Also, use of criminal networks (drug lords, thugs, death squads) and disreputable groups such as the white separatists in Bolivia, in various ways, to cause trouble.

Both Bolivia and Argentina have had spectacular recoveries from the Bush-instigated worldwide depression, and Argentina was the first country to triumph over World Bank/IMF wreckage, through the defiant and brilliant policies of the Kirchner/Fernandez administrations. I'm not sure what the causes of declining Morales and Fernandez popularity might be. I am especially surprised by Morales' numbers. He is the "Nelson Mandela" of Latin America--an inspiring and beloved leader who has guided Bolivia through an extremely difficult transition from racist white rule to democracy. Bolivia's economic growth numbers have also been amazingly good. And Morales has overseen a doubling of Bolivia's gas revenues--funds that are being used for social programs. The problem may be with the new super highway from Brazil. There is a lot of Indigenous opposition to it--and Morales is pretty committed to it, for developing Bolivia and as a matter of cooperation with the leftist development program in general in South America. This is the sort of conflict that the CIA is clever at exploiting. However, Ecuador has a very similar conflict going on, and it hasn't affected Correa's numbers (an astonishing 80% approval rating).

Ollanta Humala's poor numbers might be explained by the fact that he is saddled with a U.S. "free trade for the rich" agreement negotiated by the previous RW/"neo-liberal" government. However, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua is also saddled with such an agreement and remains quite popular. Possibly Humala's "centrism" is just not sufficient for the poor majority whose hopes were raised when he was elected. And he has perhaps gone too far not to offend the U.S. and its allies (mainly Canada) and their corporate pals operating in Peru. Ortega has been much more to the left and is directly allied with Chavez, for instance, whereas Humala has tried to distance himself from Chavez. I have thought that this was a mistake by Humala and perhaps it was.

But none of this kind of analysis can help explain the huge discrepancy between Morales' numbers (41%) and Rafael Correa's (80%). Morales and Correa have had very similar policies and have a very similar political philosophy. The two countries are comparable in other respects--size, big Indigenous population, rich in resources (Bolivia--gas, lithium; Ecuador, oil), political instability and great discontent--especially of the poor--prior to the leftist presidents getting elected, plus a very similar leftist development vs. Indigenous/environmental conflict--and both Morales and Correa have done things in defense of their countries' sovereignty and resources that have totally pissed off the U.S. and its corporate rulers (generally applauded in these countries). Yet the one, Morales, has sunk dramatically in the polls and Correa's popularity is sky high. It's a puzzle.

[Judi Lynn]

1. I wondered about Bolivia, as well. Didn't make sense. It IS true Bolivia has been ruled

by an especially vicious, Native American-hating, abusing. shunning white European class from the moment they invaded. It has been horrendous.

The indigenous-hating Europeans wouldn't even let indigenous Bolivians walk on city sidewalks with "white" people until 1952, or vote, either. Those changes came suddenly at the end of a revolution, anaccompanied by other vital advances.

I've heard the current state in Bolivia is very similar to the U.S. South around the time of the civil rights struggle. Indigenous Bolivians are still wildly mistreated, violently, too, as you know, at times.

Until Morales, Presidents and the legislature and courts were controlled by European-descended people, for themselves, and only themselves. No one else has mattered. All news outlets direct their content to them. I am certain the chokehold by the fair complected elites and this government's interest in seeing THAT power continue unbroken is at the absolute heart of the matter, and that it's going to take a continual hard struggle until they finally get their freedom, so long denied them, after being stolen violently from them long ago.

[joshcryer]

2. 10 días