Referring to an opinion survey conducted by Hinterlaces in June, Fred Fuentes says:
"This pro-govt polling company also gave Gonzalez 22% compared to the 43% he purportedly got according to the CNE, so it hardly had its finger on the pulse of the Venezuelan people. " This seeming discrepancy is easily explained. Edmundo Gonzalez was unknown to most Venezuelans until recently. He became a candidate in the presidential election as a proxy for Maria Corina Machado, an extreme right politician who was banned from contesting the election because of her past actions considered treasonous, including supporting US sanctions against Venezuela and calling for US military intervention. It took time for Gonzalez to become known to the voters. In the June opinion survey, the anti-Maduro vote was split among 9 candidates. By election day (July 28) most anti-Maduro voters had been persuaded to support Gonzalez, who was the candidate preferred by the United States. The question of why the CNE (National Electoral Council) has not published a breakdown of the results by polling centres is not so easily answered. It might be, as Fred assumes, because the results are fraudulent. But other explanations are possible. My guess is that the government is embarrassed because these results would show there has been a severe loss of support in some traditional Chavista areas. The CNE's figures for the nation-wide vote show a decline in the participation rate from 80 percent in the 2013 presidential election to 58 percent in the 2024 election: https://venezuelanalysis.com/opinion/voting-trends-do-they-favor-machado-gonzalez-or-maduro In other words, a big jump in the number of people not voting. My guess would be that abstention was disproportionately high in working class areas, where people were disillusioned with Maduro but reluctant to vote for the right wing opposition. Why were they disillusioned? Probably a combination of reasons. The blockade has led to a deterioration of services (health care, etc). Some people would probably blame the government for this. Others would recognise that the blockade is to blame, but feel pessimistic about the prospects of successfully defying the power of the US, and conclude that there is no point voting. Also, the growth of corruption, which I have argued is a byproduct of the blockade. Fred says: "While continuing to call for the sanctions to be lifted — regardless of what happens in Venezuela — we have to express our concrete support for the remaining democratic rights of Venezuelan workers and the left, which the Maduro government is seeking to strip away." I agree, but I would not focus on claims that the election results are fraudulent, because I am not convinced that this is the case. One issue that we could mention is the manoeuvre that deprived the Communist Party of electoral registration, and prevented it from putting forward a candidate in the presidential election. Chris Slee -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#33244): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/33244 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/109123065/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
