Yesterday the state-controlled Venezolana de Televisión stated Chávez's popularity has climbed 22 points from last month to 80.1%. We are getting close to Lukashenko levels - if we believe in Santa or the government, that is. The IVAD - Instituto Venezolano de Análisis de Datos - is supposed to be an independent pollster, but they are the ones the government chooses to quote time after time. Even if IVAD numbers have been quoted for some years now, the company still hasn't got its site running, as you can see from the screenshot I uploaded here. Perhaps they hurry up now. Perhaps you can say hello to them. Their email is ivad@ivad.com.ve. Perhaps they say they are just rebuilding their site.
I swear you: even ranting Soviet-time Pravda was the mother of objective journalism compared to Venezuela's Venezolana de Televisión. At least they kept their insults to "fascist" and "imperalist".
I wrote about IVAD's incredible numbers and Chavista mathematics some months ago. I have the impression someone from the government told the IVAD people to produce better numbers.
The Chavista Nacional Electorate...sorry, Consejo Nacional Electoral
Daniel writes an excellent post about the military (and Chavista) control of the electoral council. Basically the Venezuelan laws forbid active military personnel from being members of a political party. The Consejo nacional electoral had the database of PSUV (Chávez-party) members online. If you had the ID number of a person, you could check out if the ID was in the registry. An NGO entered the IDs of many generals and they appeared in the data base. The head of the NGO went to the only remaining regime-critical TV channel, Globovision, and asked the last remaining but powerless non-Chavista member of the CNE to check that out in front of the cameras. Everybody could see the generals were members of the Chavez party. Those generals are part of the body that keeps control of the key elements of every election. Just a few hours after that came to light, the CNE took off the database from the Internet. Now the (Chávez) Justice is demanding the NGO to prove its case. Stay tuned.
I swear you: even ranting Soviet-time Pravda was the mother of objective journalism compared to Venezuela's Venezolana de Televisión. At least they kept their insults to "fascist" and "imperalist".
I wrote about IVAD's incredible numbers and Chavista mathematics some months ago. I have the impression someone from the government told the IVAD people to produce better numbers.
The Chavista Nacional Electorate...sorry, Consejo Nacional Electoral
Daniel writes an excellent post about the military (and Chavista) control of the electoral council. Basically the Venezuelan laws forbid active military personnel from being members of a political party. The Consejo nacional electoral had the database of PSUV (Chávez-party) members online. If you had the ID number of a person, you could check out if the ID was in the registry. An NGO entered the IDs of many generals and they appeared in the data base. The head of the NGO went to the only remaining regime-critical TV channel, Globovision, and asked the last remaining but powerless non-Chavista member of the CNE to check that out in front of the cameras. Everybody could see the generals were members of the Chavez party. Those generals are part of the body that keeps control of the key elements of every election. Just a few hours after that came to light, the CNE took off the database from the Internet. Now the (Chávez) Justice is demanding the NGO to prove its case. Stay tuned.
I plotted these numbers based on the news from the state media, as you can see from the link I added. They always said popularity was climbing, even last February. Now they made sure the increase is indeed positive: 82%.