The Keller first campaign poll

Just as Katy did, I did get the latest Keller poll from to different people. I suppose this mean that I must comment on it, not to mention that Alfredo Keller is the only pollster that I put some trust in, at least in his trend studies.

It is apparently an early result, a presentation made for some event and thus we do not have all the details of the measurement. Thus I will not deal much with it, except for two slides that in my opinion show how the weaknesses of Chavez are starting to operate.

In this first slide (click to enlarge) we have the evolution of the three segments of the Venezuelan political body: the pro Chavez camp, the anti Chavez camp and the famed Ni-Ni. I, for one, have never bought the Ni-Ni concept which would have meant that some people actually thought that they could switch between Chavez and his adversaries. In Venezuela everyone knows full well what is going on and from my perspective NiNi meant “I do not care about the mess since I cannot do much about it anyway”. After February 27 2004 it would be too difficult to hold a speech that would pretend at impartiality. Many people preferred to the non-committal posture, ever so safe, and ever so reinforced after the opposition leadership went from blunder to blunder.

But times are changing and I am proven right. In one year, as the presidential election approaches and as the opposition starts ever so slowly to puts its act together there is a strong decrease in the Ni-Ni segment, all of it for the profit of the opposition segment. Even chavismo seems to start suffering a little bit from that erosion, a little bit only but some. Is this real?

The next slide I have selected leads me to think that perhaps indeed even chavismo is starting to suffer erosion. Too many controversial measures have been taken in the name of the glorious bolibananarian revolution and there is a chavista softer core that has doubts. Thus the second slide is very telling in my opinion, very humble of course. There were many questions asked to the interviewed folks and the response of the chavista elector was particularly examined. The conclusion is quite surprising: the 48% of chavista seen in the previous slide is divided in two groups, an “uncritical” group of 25% and a more critical one of 23%. That is, there are 23% of Venezuelans that side with Chavez but who find enough reasons to criticize his policies and thus arguably could listen to a different proposal. Tough sell for Rosales perhaps, but not undoable.

By the way, in the past I have always said that there is a 30% hard core chavista that will stay with Chavez no matter what, almost cult like. Even if it is 25% I am kind of satisfied to see that my impression is yet again confirmed.