Opinion Duel, Day 2

Today, Gustavo Coronel fires his rebuttal in the first Venezuela Opinion Duel.

posted by Francisco @ 10/29/2005 09:14:00 AM   

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Going head to head with Gustavo Coronel

Gustavo Coronel has been writing about NiNis.

So have I.

I don't agree with a single thing he has to say about them.

So I challenged him to an Opinion Duel.

He accepted.

Click here to read the results...

posted by Francisco @ 10/28/2005 03:02:00 PM   

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Roberto Smith in his own words...

I'm translating selected excerpts of Venezuela de Primera leader Roberto Smith's online forum at Noticiero Digital. The questions are posed by Noticiero Digital readers.

Q: What's different in your offer from what we've seen and lived before?
A: We offer something no one has ever offered, not the bolivarian generation, nor the generation of '28, nor that of '58, nor those in power today: to build a first-world country economically, socially, politically and culturally, within one generation. To be the first country in Latin America to be a first-world country, like Singapur, South Korea, Taiwan and Lebannon did, among others.

I'll transcribe the opening of our statement of principles:

"Never in our history has a generation set out to turn Venezuela into one of the best countries in the world. We take on that challenge and we begin here a new era in the history of our people: the era of the construction of a first world Venezuela, a people known as one of the greatest in the world.

Our starting point is clear: all Venezuelans hope for a First World Venezuela, a society like the most successful in the world in all areas of human life, prosperous and poverty-free, with work for everyone without exclusion or marginalization, free, pluralist and republican, free of populism and authoritarianism, with an effective and just government, free of mediocrity and culturally creative. There is no other acceptable destiny, and so a First World Venezuela is the only national project that can truly unity all Venezuelans on a great common enterprise."

There is no country in the world with our potential for prosperity and social justice. We refuse to accept a mediocre destiny. That is VERY DIFFERENT from the offers that the Venezuelan people has heard before.

Q: Are you Rodolfo's son?
A: I am not related to journalist Rodolfo Schmidt, whom I admire. My father is Roberto Smith Camacho, from Churuguara, Falcon State, an engineer and first rate man, and my grandfather Juancho Smith, who was a peasant.

Q: If, right now, unity is the most important thing, what's the point of coming out to compete at this time? Doesn't it just strain the atmosphere and atomize the opposition even more?
A: I agree with you that unity is key, but I mean the unity of ALL Venezuelans around a new project to turn us into a first-world country. That, in my humble opinion, is the only "unity" that's worth anything. The idea that the country is split in two chunks is wrong. There is a huge majority of Venezuelans who don't want what we have now or what we had in the past. Together we should build that more transcendental unity, which will eventually encompass everyone. I don't see what could be bad about setting out to compete by proposing a project for real national unity.

Q: Don't you think the Opposition's possibilities for success would be more realistic if they recognized the lies and errors they've imposed on their followers over the last seven years?
A: I agree with you.

Q: Will you be the leader to recognize once and for all that there was no fraud in the referendum, that April 11th was a planned coup and that the opposition has been in the minority in Venezuela since 1998? Or are you scared of being rejected like all those who have gotten "close" to the government?
A: I don't identify with the Opposition, but rather with a new proposal (in spanish "proposición") to build a first world country. I think the Opposition allowed itself to lose the referendum ("se dejó ganar"), with or without fraud. I have severely criticized the events of April 2002. I marched peacefully along with hundreds of thousands and I was infuriated by the violence that day, but I was much more indignated by what happened afterwards.

I believe most Venezuelans today are not on one side or the other, but that they aspire to a new proposal for a First World Venezuela, without conflict, with national unity. In the past, a large majority systematically backed a project for change that offered much that was positive. But time passes, while the people still suffer and wait...

I want to unite 100% of Venezuelans, not just one part.

Q. The opposition has suffered 10 defeats since 1998. Every defeat has been decisive. Isn't that a sign that in Venezuela today there is an irrefutable rejection against everything that has to do with the political past and a firm determination not to go back?
A: I endorse the idea that THEY SHALL NOT RETURN (NO VOLVERAN) - that includes much from the not-so-recent past, but also lots from the recent past. I share the predominant concern with the excluded and the poor in the current discourse, but I am very worried about the inefficiency and corruption that are a consequence of public mismanagement.

Q: Since you are part of that political past (reference to his stint as communication minister in the early 90s), how do you intend with the stigma?
A: The only thing no one can change is their past. I am proud of my career, marked by efficiency, honesty, social commitment and good management.

Q: Do you think of yourself as right wing or left wing?
A: Part left, part right...I'd rather think of myself as first wing, like all Venezuelans. The right-left axis isn't very meaningful anymore because we live in the century of diversity, of creativity, and that axis is too simplistic.

Q: Do you think the alliance with Cuba is a positive thing?
A: I love Cubans, I hate their dictatorship. It's a historical anomaly, and I dream of helping Cuba find the liberty, the democracy and the prosperity they don't have today.

Q: Do you think CNE is legitimate? If not, why do you participate in the elections put together by an illegitimate CNE?
A: The electoral system, on the whole, is "depressing", not "First World" ("deprimente, no de primera"). We believe in elections, not in abstention, but we're demanding CNE to allow the people to count all the votes, and to get rid of the thumb-print scanners and electronic rolls that undermine the secrecy of the vote, and to clean up the electoral registry. We will keep on demanding those things until they are achieved. If they are not, we will take other steps in due course.

Q: Do you believe in Twentyfirst Century Socialism?
A: I've been studying social and political doctrines since I can remember. I was a democratic socialist (read MAS supporter) when I was at university, but I've left such simplistic views behind. Today my heart is full of solidarity and justice, but my head is focused on efficiency, that's why I believe in a proper balance between market and state, between solidarity and efficiency - I think "isms" work only to justify systems of domination. I believe we should shift from the hegemony of domination to the predominance of cooperation.

Q: Do you really think you have enough support to become president?
A: Our project for a First World Venezuela has the overwhelming support of the population, they want full employment, zero crime, a home for everyone and a First World democracy. Turning that into a vote for president demands, nonetheless, a huge effort. But history is full of election surprises. Fujimori had 0.6% in the polls 8 months before he was elected. Uribe was at 6% just 6 months before his election. Kennedy was on 3% a year before his election. And the current president had 2.5% 10 months before his election. (Note how he NEVER mentions Chavez by name, even when he - exceptionally - talks about him. -ft) Nothing is settled until the people make their choice.

The main tool I use to reach the people is to be there, to live , suffer and share with the poor people of this country. There is no other way to understand the problems of the majority except from inside the poor barries and the most misery-stricken towns. In those barrios and those towns you find the First World people of Venezuela. Those who long for a first-world country, those who want to improve their lives together, those who want to leave the fighting aside and reconnect once again in a world of opportunities for all.

Q: I want to live like they do in the Nordic countries. Will you achieve that? It's impossible: nobody wants Venezuela to be like that. Why did they take down Carlos Andres Perez? He had that goal and they wouldn't let him.
A: We Venezuelans want to live like the richest and most prosperous people on earth...but keeping our culture, identity, originality, beauty. The idea isn't to copy anyone, but to be better than everyone. How? Just two examples:

1. We will become the biggest energy superpower on earth, producing 10 to 12 million barrels of oil and gas per day, processing them to maximize their added value. That will allow us to finance the projects for First World education, First World health care, and others, as well as generating over 1.5 million new productive jobs.

2. We will become a tourism powerhouse, bringing 15 million tourists a year (not the mere 300,000 who come now) on the basis of our biodiversity, our coasts, our mountains, and especially our beautiful and gentle people. That way we would create over 2.5 million jobs with good wages.

Those are just two examples, but I could go into our plans for new export industries, for a knowledge society, for modern agroindustry. Finland is a good example of a country that went from being really backward to being one of the most successful, because they rode the wave of the information society. Why can't we do something similar or better?

posted by Francisco @ 10/27/2005 03:53:00 PM   

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Learning the Lessons of the Opposition Debacle

Over the last ten days, I’ve written a series of short posts trying to summarize what has gone wrong with the Traditional Opposition, and pointing to Venezuela de Primera as a group that seems to have learned the right lessons from the Opposition debacle. Looking back, it strikes me that they read more like subsections of one long essay. So, breaking again my pledge to post only shorter pieces, I’ve stitched together those posts into an Epic Post of Opposition Bumbling and Suggestions for Making it Right Again.

1. Understanding NiNis
My starting premise was that the debate on the trustworthiness of CNE is largely misplaced – the basic reason the Opposition can’t beat Chavez at the ballot box is not fraud, it’s that most Venezuelans prefer voting for Chavez than for the Opposition. To have any hope to reverse that trend, we need to understand why.

The startling fact is that seven years into the Chavez era of furious political polarization, about half of the Venezuelan electorate remains politically non-alligned - the so-called NiNis. As a matter of simple arithmetic, it is not possible to construct an antichavista electoral majority without winning over a large chunk of this sector. But Venezuela’s Opposition faces major obstacles in winning over the politically non-alligned; basically because they don’t understand them. So, first, I want to discuss why the Opposition can’t seem to understand the NiNis, as a starting point for a broader discussion of how the Opposition has managed to alienate the broad political center where elections are won.

Obviously, a lot of Opposition supporters are extremely frustrated by the NiNi position. I've come to think the heart of the problem is confusion about the word "opposition."

There are two ways to understand the word in a political context, and the subtle difference between the two has given rise to endless misunderstanding...

Princeton WordNet renders them as:

opposition (n) : a body of people united in opposing something

Opposition (n) : the major political party opposed to the party in office and prepared to replace it if elected (e.g. "Her Majesty's loyal opposition")

The first definition is generic: anyone who disagrees with something is in opposition to it. In English, at least, this generic meaning is conveyed by writing it with a little "o". The second meaning - often capitalized in English - is specific: the Opposition is the particular set of parties and leaders that leads the opposition to the government.

The point about NiNis is that they are in opposition but not in Opposition.

When pollsters ask NiNis "are you part of the opposition?" what NiNis hear is "are you part of the Opposition?" They interpret it specifically, not generically.

Not surprisingly, they say no. The word brings to mind the old Coordinadora Democratica, what I've been calling the Traditional Opposition - and the one thing NiNis are agreed on is that they hate the Traditional Opposition. They reject its radicalism, its Chavez fixation, its obsession with incomprehensible detail, its negativism...they have lots and lots of perfectly good reasons to be upset with the Opposition .

But Opposition supporters usually think of the word generically - and so they can't fathom how anyone who is opposed to Chavez could possibly be a NiNi in good faith.

This is why Opposition supporters get so frustrated with opposition-minded NiNis. "If you oppose the government," they say in exasperation, "then - by definition - you must be part of the opposition! Otherwise you're either a fence-sitter, an opportunist or an idiot!"

"Not at all!" reply the NiNis, "we don't have to be in the Opposition to be opposed to Chavez!"

Thing is: they're talking about subtly different things, but this isn't immediately apparent. So the misunderstanding drags on and on and on...

What the polling data show, though, is that the Opposition has lost the support of large chunks of the opposition. My last few posts just express my anger at the Opposition's inability to grasp this, and its unwillingness take drastic action to reverse the trend.

If the Traditional Opposition doesn't realize it has to change to win back the opposition, then the opposition will have to find a way to form a New Opposition - one embodying the message of optimism and renewal they constantly tell the pollsters they are hungry for.

2. Antichavismo without Chavez
The Opposition, as we've known it, has failed. On this, we're all more or less agreed. It's failed on so many levels it's hard to know where to start. But, to my mind, the most basic failures have been tactical.

Time and again, Opposition leaders have centered political debate on issues that play to Chavez's advantage. Chief among these is the issue of Chavez himself.

It baffles us, angers us, dismays us and infuriates us, but most Venezuelans kinda like Chavez. A good 30% idolize him, another 40% have mixed feelings about him, but only a relatively small minority positively detest him like the Opposition leadership does. In poll after poll, Chavez personally gets much higher marks than "the government", "the cabinet", or anything else associated with Chavez.

How might a tactically savvy Opposition respond to this polling trend? You'd think it would try to refocus debate away from Chavez the man and towards his government's incompetence. But this hasn't happened. Opposition leaders' visceral horror at his caudillismo and autocratic zeal prevents it. With remarkable singleness of purpose, they work to keep debate centered on the one aspect of Chavismo that's most popular with the electorate at large.

Not surprisingly, it hasn't exactly worked. So maybe it's worth trying something different. Maybe the smart way to go about this is to put together an anti-government discourse that scrupulously avoids even mentioning Chavez.

Impossible?

Venezuela de Primera doesn't think so...

3. Discipline, Optimism, Renewal
More than its failures, what exasperates the opposition grassroots is that the Opposition leadership doesn't seem to learn from those failures. Today, I want to go deeper into the Opposition inability to put together a message that people might want to vote for.

The Opposition's main message problem leading up to last year's Recall Referendum was its inability to communicate in a disciplined way. The old Coordinadora Democratica was an absolute gallinero, a loose confederation of politically very diverse groups brought together only by visceral antichavismo. It's not surprising that such a disaggregated coalition could not settle on a limited, deliberately chosen set of key themes and stick to them. The CD members never accepted a single leader, or even a strong central secretariat, with real power to impose some "message discipline."

Not surprisingly, the CD's communications quickly degenerated into an incoherent potpourri of anti-Chavez bile, with spokesmen competing to out-do one another in a game of "quien-es-mas-antichavista". What passed for a "communication strategy" wasn't much more than a string of anti-Chavez rants carried live on Globovision and Union Radio, each stressing different themes in different ways. There was no message discipline at all, largely because there was no organization to impose message discipline.

This combination of message indiscipline and Chavez fixation made it impossible for the CD to put forward an optimistic message. This is important. A pile of social science research shows that voters respond much better to optimistic messages. Even after seven years, Chavez's relentless optimism is a big part of his electoral draw. But an opposition held together only by distaste for Chavez could only talk about how bad things would be if Chavez stayed in power. Their message came over as relentlessly negative: a major turnoff for voters.

A related failure was the CD's inability to put forward a message of renewal. This was also a function of CD heterogeneity. The perceived imperative for "unity" inside such a varied organization meant melding together the fourth republic dinosauriat with sixth republic reformism. The prominence of fourth republic figures in the CD made it an easy target for government attacks. How on earth do you convince the voters that Henry Ramos Allup is really going to go for a forward-looking reformist government? That Antonio Ledezma is the future?! Those are some tough sells!

If the Traditional Opposition had had the guts to accept defeat in last year's referendum, it might have launched a serious internal debate about these problems. Instead, they decided to duck behind a fraud claim on evidence that couldn't convince anyone outside the hardcore base. The claim put a stop to any serious consideration of the CD's message problem. The Traditional Opposition, today, has made exactly zero progress on message discipline, or on forging an optimistic message of renewal.

Again, I can't help but notice that there's only one political group out there that seems to have clearly understood the need to put out an optimistic message of renewal in a disciplined way: Venezuela de Primera. I can see no reason to think that anyone else has quite learned the lessons of the CD failure.

4. Talking to the NiNis
Another area where the Coordinadora Democratica failed disastrously was in thinking through its target audience. By and large, the Traditional Opposition was happy to talk to hardcore antichavistas only. It never really put together a message to attract the political center. It still hasn't.

This is a serious problem. For all the talk about polarization, both hardcore antichavismo and hardcore chavismo have remained minority positions in Venezuela over the last two years. The largest single piece of the political cake has remained the the politically orphaned people who question both Chavez and the opposition – the confusingly dubbed NiNis. According to survey and focus group data gathered by Hinterlaces, 51% of voters were politically non-alligned in March 2005. In the 20 months preceding that study, the NiNis averaged 47% of the electorate.

According to the study, 30% of the Ni Nis identify with some of Chavez's values, but would welcome new political alternatives. They don't consider themselves chavistas, but they voted against revoking Chavez. Half of NiNis broadly question Chavez, but see a few positive aspects in his discourse and his government. 60% of this group voted against Chavez in the referendum. The remaining 20% of NiNis oppose the government radically, but don't identify with the Traditional Opposition. In fact, the one thing that brings NiNis together is that they all reject a Traditional Opposition they see as a holdover from the despised fourth republic.

So the Traditional Opposition has pretty successfully alienated a vast political center. The good news is that 69% of the people Hinterlaces interviewed in March ardently wished for a credible alternative to Chavez. They wanted a fresh face, one that isn't fixated on Chavez, with a positive vision for the future, and free from the stench of puntofijismo.

If the polling data can be believed, the country is ready and waiting for a group like Venezuela de Primera. Run by a frighteningly bright guy, disciplined in its message, free of cuarta republica dinosaurs, armed with an optimistic message of renewal taylor made to the demands of NiNis, fully conscious of where the Traditional Opposition went wrong and determined to learn from those mistakes.

5. Picking Themes that Resonate
The Opposition’s amazing ability to turn off the political center needs to be carefully considered. Part of the problem I’ve gone through already: its negativism, Chavez-fixation, and fourth republic bedfellows have alienated precisely the people they most need to defeat Chavez. But the Opposition’s choice of political themes has also been a major problem. The Traditional Opposition consistently alienates the political center by focusing on particularistic, nitty-gritty matters, often technical in nature, which baffle even many experts and leave the NiNis totally cold. While Chavez leans on themes that resonate with people's aspirations, the Opposition keeps getting bogged down in incomprehensible detail.

There are a million examples of this. In 2001, the Opposition spent months arguing that Chavez should be tried for misallocating FIEM funds. Now, personally, I agree what happened with FIEM was a scandal - the guy more or less admitted to a criminal offense in public. Politically, alas, that's beside the point. The explanation of the crime hinged on a detailed understanding of macroeconomic stabilization legislation, budgeting laws and parliamentary procedure, issues most people neither understand or care about. As a matter of law, the accusation was spot on. As a matter of political communications, it was just silly.

At different times, this Opposition penchant for droning on at great length about incomprehensible details has latched onto topics as varied as data transmission patterns to and from CNE voting machines, the macroeconomics of central bank reserve management, the doctrine of the "Estado Docente," the aplicability of Benford's Law to elections data, juridical doctrines on the relative competence of different chambers within the Supreme Tribunal, the geological dynamics of heavy crude well management, and many, many others. Say what you will about each case on its own merits, but it was always absurd to expect these sorts of topics to "catch fire" politically.

Meanwhile, Chavez limited his political rhetoric to crisp, clear, emotionally resonant themes that anyone at any level of education could understand. Which of these is smarter politics?

What the Traditional Opposition failed to see is that the vast majority of voters care about symbols and they care about their day-to-day lives. You can mobilize them with emotionally resonant, symbolically dense discourses - Chavez's specialty - and with messages about their day-to-day problems - the Opposition’s great wasted opportunity. But you can't mobilize them if they can't understand you.

Tactically, the Traditional Opposition failed calamitously at the basic, emotive trick any politician needs to pull off to get votes: connecting with voters' aspirations. Connecting, in an emotionally meaningful way, with their hopes for the future, their desires, their fantasies even.

At the very least, voters need to be convinced that those who aspire to lead them understand them in some basic way. That they get it, they sympathize, that they feel their pain, to borrow that awful Clintonian formulation. Chavez is a genius at this sort of thing. The Traditional Opposition never even tried to compete, retreating instead into arcane debates that made them seem utterly out of touch. Seen in this light, it's not really a surprise we kept getting our butts kicked at the ballot box.

We need to learn from those mistakes. A renewed Opposition needs to learn to play the game of aspirational politics. Again, I'll point to Venezuela de Primera as a group that seems to have learned this lesson. On their homepage, you read this little blurb from the current Miss Venezuela:

"Today I'm the happiest woman in the world... With the money I get I will help my family: I want to fix up my mom's room, and my brother's, get rid of the leak in the roof... I don't picture myself driving the BMW I won - it's a great car, but it's too risky to drive it around town. They'll think I'm rich and I don't want to risk my life. I have enough for the basics, and I do need a little car to get around. For sure I want to save, to work hard to make sure my kids can get work. I want my own house, so I can give my kids everything I couldn't have."

It's a simple message, really. Modest, optimistic, realistic and forward looking. It speaks to people's aspirations. Speak consistently, optimistically to these themes in a disciplined way, and maybe you can get people to identify with your message. Drone on and on about some technical detail they can't understand, and they certainly won't.

Before closing this essay, I want to stress that I don’t actually know Roberto Smith or anyone else in the Venezuela de Primera team – and I am not actually a VdP zealot. Roberto may well turn out to be an electoral dud. The movement may not catch on at all. What concerns me – as I’ve tried to stress again and again – are opposition tactics. At the level of political communications, of political marketing, I think VdP has a very interesting approach. Ideally, I wish the Traditional Opposition would sit up, take the polling data seriously, think through their past mistakes carefully, and start copying VdP’s approach. What I will say, though, is that VdP is the first group I see that gets serious about the Opposition’s message problem and makes drastic changes to address it. It’s a promising sign…but, for now, it’s nothing more than that.

posted by Francisco @ 10/27/2005 05:45:00 AM   

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The Coming Venezuela-Mercosur-EU Free Trade Area

I'll take a break from opposition bashing and write about economic issues for a change. Believe it or not, I'm still writing a Ph.D. dissertation, and believe it or not it has nothing at all to do with Venezuelan politics. It's about trade policy making and the WTO. So the second part of this item about the EU electoral mission caught my eye.

Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez assured EU Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner that Venezuela's decision to join Mercosur (which is baffling on its own merit) would not delay ongoing Mercosur-EU negotiations to launch an Interregional Association Agreement.

What does that mean, exactly?

Since 1998, the EU and Mercosur have been negotiating a preferential trade deal. Under WTO trade rules, preferential trade deals must liberalize "substantially all trade." And, indeed, the EU says its negotiations with Mercosur aim at the "liberalization of trade in goods and services, aiming at free trade, in conformity with WTO rules."

So - and hardly anyone seems to have caught on to this - by joining Mercosur Venezuela would be joining a Free Trade Agreement not just with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, but also with the whole of the EU...in a few years' time.

posted by Francisco @ 10/26/2005 05:12:00 AM   

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Sumate Will Play Ball with the EU

Sumate, which has taken a very hard line against CNE recently, today welcomed the EU's decision to send an elections observation mission, calling it a chance to expose CNE irregularities.

Great! They've had a year to fine-tune their theory of what CNE is doing wrong. They should have it licked by now. Unless Europe is somehow unable to rise to the level of technological sophistication of Plaza Caracas, any electronic fraud will almost certainly be detected.

Very good! Now we can get down to campaigning!

...erm...anyone...anyone...

posted by Francisco @ 10/25/2005 12:24:00 PM   

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When opposition is not Opposition

A lot of Opposition supporters are extremely frustrated by the NiNi position. I've come to think the heart of the problem is a misunderstanding about the word "opposition."

There are two ways to understand the word in a political context, and the subtle difference between the two has given rise to endless misunderstanding...

Princeton WordNet renders them as:

opposition (n) : a body of people united in opposing something

Opposition (n) : the major political party opposed to the party in office and prepared to replace it if elected (e.g. "Her Majesty's loyal opposition")

The first definition is generic: anyone who disagrees with something is in opposition to it. In English, at least, this generic meaning is conveyed by writing it with a little "o". The second meaning - often capitalized in English - is specific: the Opposition is the particular set of parties and leaders that leads the opposition to the government.

(I didn't know this rule of capitalization - so I haven't been using it consistently in my last few posts - but it's quite useful, so I'll adopt it.)

The point about NiNis is that they are in opposition but not in Opposition.

When pollsters ask NiNis "are you part of the opposition?" what NiNis hear is "are you part of the Opposition?" They interpret it specifically, not generically.

Not surprisingly, they say no. The word brings to mind the old Coordinadora Democratica, what I've been calling the Traditional Opposition - and the one thing NiNis are agreed on is that they hate the Traditional Opposition. They reject its radicalism, its Chavez fixation, its obsession with incomprehensible detail, its negativism...they have lots and lots of perfectly good reasons to be upset with the Opposition .

But Opposition supporters usually think of the word generically - and so they can't fathom how anyone who is opposed to Chavez could possibly be a NiNi in good faith.

This, I think, is the reason so many Opposition supporters get so frustrated with opposition-minded NiNis. "If you oppose the government," they say in exasperation, "then - by definition - you must be part of the opposition! Otherwise you're either a fence-sitter, an opportunist or an idiot!"

"Not at all!" reply the NiNis, "we don't have to be in the Opposition to be opposed to Chavez!"

Thing is: they're talking about subtly different things, but this isn't immediately apparent. So the misunderstanding drags on and on and on...

What the polling data show, though, is that the Opposition has lost the support of large chunks of the opposition. My last few posts just express my anger at the Opposition's inability to grasp this, and its unwillingness take drastic action to reverse the trend.

If the Traditional Opposition doesn't realize it has to change to win back the opposition, then the opposition will have to find a way to form a New Opposition - one embodying the message of optimism and renewal they constantly tell the pollsters they are hungry for.

posted by Francisco @ 10/25/2005 05:28:00 AM   

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This just in: European Union will Monitor Dec. 4th Parliamentary Elections

It's official: the EU will send 150 monitors to oversee the December parliamentary elections.

So now we have credible monitors, and a CNE commitment to count the ballots from a third of the voting centers - which makes massive fraud a statistical impossibility. If the Supreme Tribunal votes to outlaw the "Twins" - the only thing missing will be...erm, an actual campaign by the opposition!

posted by Francisco @ 10/24/2005 04:38:00 PM   

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Debating the NiNis

Today, I've decided to post the little back and forth between Daniel Duquenal and myself from yesterday's comments section. Being the Sunday Supplement, it runs a bit longer than my pledge allows. I'm insisting on the NiNi topic because I think the opposition as a whole has a real problem understanding their position, and it's really hurt us. Daniel, btw, is the guy behind Venezuela News and Views, better known as Daniel's blog. For newbies, I go by my nickname "Quico" in the comments section.

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Quico

Are you bent on dicovering warm water?

All this is fine, and known for quite a while, starting with the opposition failure to connect with its own constitutency, even its hard core one.

One thing that you might want to look at is the NiNi voting intention no matter what. I bet you that you would find really interesting results there...

The problem in your argument is that after February 27 2004, you cannot be a NiNi anymore: you are with Chavez, you are against him or you do not give a crap. NiNi is actually a code name for people who do not give a crap about politics, human rights or whatever. They only care about what they can get now, in the present tense. If Nini are swelling again it is because they are not getting as much as they were getting or not as much as they were hoping.

NiNi are the product of nearly 50 years of crass populism. Until they do not go hungry they will not take a stand. Convincing them is an expensive and risk laced enterprise. The NiNi were agaisnt Chavez in 2003 and had a great time in the oppo highway bailoterapia, but came back to him in 2004 when Misiones were more fun, and are drifting again and wil go for again and so and so no matter who is in charge in Venezuela.

No, I think that what is better than VdP (by the way VdP sounds kind of VenDe Patria you know) is to create a party of the democratic right and accept that it will take at least 5 years until any possible long lasting electorate is built, amen of winning even the election of alcalde de Tucusiapon. Only when the debate gets back on concrete values and populism failure becomes more apparent (with 25 millons of us in here it should not be long until we run out of money) we will not be able to effect any positive change. The best chance for a real efficient social democracy in Venezuela passes through the previous construction of a real right (this is what happened in Chile by the way as the succes of Lagos is due to the existence of a true right wing opposition).

In other words, if you want to do something with the NiNi once and for all, a little bit of forcing the issues might be more difficult to do but might have better long term results. VdP, I do not see them doing it.

By the way, I love this debate. Something you will never see in a chavista page.
daniel | Homepage | 10.22.05 - 9:21 am | #

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Alas, Daniel - this is just not what the polling data shows! Hinterlaces, which has done more careful study of these guys than anyone, goes to pains to differentiate NiNis from indifferents, which are a different group altogether. And their focus groups show clearly that NiNis very often have very clear, very definite political ideas. Being skeptical of chavismo in no way stops them from rejecting the TRADITIONAL opposition.

I think a lot of the problem we have here is with Language. NiNi is a misleading label. It seems to hint at indifference, or political confusion. I think no-chavista-antioposicion is more accurate, though obviously far less snappy.

Still, for sure it's good to have this debate...the problem is that it's taking place in the comments section of a blog that nobody reads instead of the pages of El Universal...

Quico | 10.22.05 - 10:49 am | #

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Quico

I have to confess that the Hinterlaces polls and whole stuff was when I was very busy preparing trips etc. So I have not followed that closely. If there are still some alive links I would be glad that you send them to me.

This being said, if Hinterlaces used focus groups it would be a good approach. In particualr to test the resolve of NiNis. After the Tascon list I suspect that a lot of the so called NiNi are in fact oppo types that are scared. Eastern Europe circa 1980 was Nini land, an era where people were allowed not to show everyday support to communism but were certainly not allowed to express any opposing view. We all know how this ended a decade later.

They are also like all of these Cubans painted in the movie Havanna blues...

But perhaps you are right. We should start by defining what a NiNi is and how important a group it is based on an accurate definition of the group. I can advance you one thing: I will have a hard time in accepting the "ideological definition" of NiNism. You cannot be a NiNi in Venezuela after 02/2004. If you are you are either lying for for survival reason or you are stupid or you do not give a crap or you are dramatically misinformed. NiNi could exist again if the regime were to allow forms of dissent that could lead to questioning its hold on power. Then perhaps there would be real NiNi that would in fact wonder whether they want Chavez to remain, warts and all. Right now, this is not an option: chavistas have stolen too much money, violated too many things to risk to lose power and be investigated. It is always important to keep this last fact in mind when specualting on how the oppo can manage a credible challenge.
daniel | Homepage | 10.22.05 - 7:24 pm | #

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Daniel,

The latest Hinterlaces study is here.

One thing you could do is go and talk to Oscar Schemel while you're in Caracas. Really engaging guy; knows more about NiNis than anyone.

I think a big part of our problem with imagining that NiNis really can exist after the reparos just expresses our personal bias - we find Chavez so execrable that we can't possibly imagine how someone could establish a kind of moral equivalence between him and the traditional oppo...but the voters are crazy, man, every pollster knows that! I mean, por dios, 45% of chavistas describe MVR as a rightwing party! En serio!!! The stuff you find when you actually go out there and talk to people about their beliefs is always screwy as hell...so I have no problem at all believing that 40-50% of the voters are real NiNis - politically engaged, lukewarm-to-angry at Chavez, and at the same time totally unwilling to put themselves under oppo leadership.

We might not like it, but the thing is reality really doesn't care how angry we get at it...that's ONE message we should've learned from the last few years...
Quico | 10.23.05 - 5:03 am | #

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Quico

So we agree at least on the stupidity parameter (I beleive you used the term "crazy" but I am not as gentle as you are).


daniel | Homepage | 10.23.05 - 9:58 am | #

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Daniel,

Whatchoogonna do, though?! Get pissed off that the voters are so dense? OK, well, I understand the frustration, but in the end you'll still need their votes.

I think the pataleta has gone on long enough. It's time to come to grips with the fact that like it or hate it, for whatever historical/sociological/political reason, right or wrong, crazy or sane, stupid or brilliant, THIS is what the voters think and this is what we have to work with.

What they're saying, in the end, isn't so crazy. The way Luis Vicente Leon puts it in his column today, they just want someone who is moderate, compassionate, effective and free of the stench of the cuartarepublismo. They want a forward looking message, a message of renewal and optimism. They're sick and tired of the oppo's negativism and fixation with Chavez.

OK, sure, we can keep on picking apart the regime's excesses per secula seculorum...but, to what end? Why bother comissioning all these polls and focus groups if we're not going to pay any attention to the results?

When oppo pollsters go out and ask NiNis what they want from an alternative leader, they get clear, crisp, consistent answers...and they have for a long time. So, crazy idea here: why don't we try giving it to them?
Quico | 10.23.05 - 11:00 am | #

posted by Francisco @ 10/23/2005 10:57:00 AM   

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