Venezuela’s Presidential elections for the period 2013 – 2019 will be held on Sunday October 7th 2012, about a month before the US jamboree takes place. With just under a year to go Chávez appears to be recovering from his cancer and last Friday, one year exactly before the election take place, "The Gran Polo Patriótico” (The Great Patriotic Pole) was launched.

President Chavéz launches The Great Patriotic Pole

This “Polo” allows social groupings to register and then work in conjunction with the population to ensure that Chávez is reelected in 2012 and so guarantee the continuation of the Bolivarian Revolution.  The quest is to establish a socialist society and gradually dismember the capitalist system which still rules in Venezuela to all intents and purposes.

Despite the massive coverage of opposition shenanigans in the corporate media of the opposition primary election due to be held on February 12th 2012 to elect Chavéz’s challenger, there is little doubt that the opposition is trailing badly in the opinion polls. The reasons for this are varied – no national plan, an ephemeral unity when the only thing that unites them is opposition (read: hatred) to Chávez and a lack of convincing discourse in the National Assembly where some of their language and antics has been repugnant to say the least.

Only six months ago Chávez was, according to pollsters favorable to the opposition, under 40% of approval rating and had only 35% of vote intention – or so they said. The latest polls show just the opposite. The major pollsters such as Hinterlaces, Datanalisis, IVAD and GISXXI all show Chávez way ahead in approval rating – anything from 58% to almost 69% in September and a winning margin of between 53% to 60% depending upon which pollster you believe. The opposition media did not publish the Datanalisis findings which put Chávez way ahead. Datanalisis has never favored the government and so to avoid embarrassment their friend in the media simply hid the results as long as they could.

Chávez popularity is not due to opposition errors. The mass of the voters in Classes D and E are near the social missions and have benefited from them. They know that it is the private sector pushing prices up, not the government. They remember the massacres propagated in the past when certain opposition parties were in power. The excluded are now included and have a decent health service, schools, free university education, subsidized food and authorities that back consumers and not big business or the banksters.

Add the this opposition candidates harping on about “communism”; Venezuela being ruled by the Castro brothers from Havana; Venezuela giving away billions of dollars to countries such as Bolivia and Nicaragua which few people believe, then you have a political discourse almost deliberately designed to lose. And lose big time.

Current Polling results

Now a new IVAD poll was published three days ago and the results broadcast on Televen, a private TV channel on Sunday. According to the latest poll taken from a sample of 1200 voters between September 24th and October 2nd, Chávez’s approval rating was 71.6% positive.

If the Presidential elections were held now against three of the heavyweight opposition contenders the results would be according to the IVAD poll.

Chávez vs. Miranda state governor Henrique Capriles Radonsky: Chávez 53.7% Radonsky 34.6% with 11.7% don’t knows.

Chávez vs. Zulia state governor Pablo Pérez: Chávez 54.3% Pérez 32.4% with 13.3% don’t knows.

Chávez vs. Leopoldo López (currently banned from running for corruption): Chávez 54.1% López 33.7% with 12.2% don’t knows.

Bearing in mind that the “don’t knows” tend to split at 50% - 50% Chávez is headed for another landslide of over 60%.

39.7% of voters support the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) with the main three opposition parties showing up with between 4% and 5.1% of popular support.

This is the best performance from Chávez and the government since before the 2006 Presidential elections which Chávez won with 63.2% of the votes cast.

Despite the aggressive opposition campaign claiming that the country is falling apart, that corruption is rampant and that "nothing works" under this government, it is obvious that most Venezuelans are not swallowing the storyline of the private media.

The same thing happened in Argentina where some 38,000 negative articles were published in the media against President Fernández  but she still cakewalked the pre- presidential poll with 56% of the vote.

As soon as the media realizes that the campaign against the government is not working in their favor – which will happen AFTER the elections – they might begin to reign in the constant barrage of insults and lies poured by their congresspersons in the National Assembly and their media synchophants. If they get smart in this way and begin to cooperate they might make some headway.

The National Assembly in January, 2011

The fact that the opposition performance in the National Assembly only receives 16.8% approval proves that the voters are unhappy with the discourse and lack of proposals being made. On the other hand, the government deputies have an approval rating of 38.1% which tallies with the popularity of the PSUV.

Polling information courtesy of Aporrea

Arturo Rosales is a seasoned journalist who has worked in several Latin American countries. Since 1999 he has been writing on a voluntary basis to disseminate the truth about environmental and energy issues which are often obfuscated in the corporate media. With the advent of the Bolivarian revolution he turned his hand to more politically angled writing, especially when analyzing the effects and strategy of the Global Corporate Empire on the third world and Latin America in particular. Currently, Arturo is a staff writer for Axis of Logic. 

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AXIS OF LOGIC  COLUMNIST, ARTURO ROSALES