Yesterday Datanalisis got out its last poll before election with the contradictions already detailed here and here. And so it is Varianzas turn today, which strangely chose Noticas 24 to come out with its poll, a web site compromised with the regime now. This detail set aside it is still an interesting poll to look at because it really shows that Venezuela has become such a polarized society that we are left with the expectation of a major event of any type to start see it moving one way or the other. Let's note alos that Varianzas has had a good track record recently and that YVpolis considers it the least biased of all pollsters in Venezuela. By the way, YVpolis bases its current prediction only on pollsters overall study and gives a narrowing margin of 4% still in Chavez favor.
Varianzas says that it is 49,7% for Chavez and 47,7% for Capriles, but the spread falls in the margin of error and thus the election is in fact too close to call. Like Consultores 21 but in reverse though Consultores is a little bit more optimistic in favor of Capriles. However if you go into the details there are a few points of Varianzas that are worse considering and that in my opinion have not worked their way fully through the voter conscience.
For example 50% relate the Amuay disaster with the regime handling of the country, whereas 8% only link this to the opposition. Of course, that 8% is the chavista moral lumpen that is ready to believe anything that pops up in VTV garbage shows. And thus we have a number for the fraction of the electorate which is truly receptive to chavismo hyper negative campaigning, rather reassuring if you ask me.
It is also to be noted that 10% more think the economic situation of the country is bad than those who think otherwise. Where is the alleged positive effect of the recent misiones? More people think that Chavez will not deliver on mision vivienda than those who think he will, by 11%!
All in all, it looks like the country is aware in its majority that things are not going well, that Chavez is not the future and yet they are unwilling to change their voting pattern, resulting in this dead heat. I hate to quote myself but I wrote on September 4 what I paste below
One thing we need to understand is that in ANY political culture where elections are held regularly 40% are ALWAYS on one side and the other 40% are ALWAYS on the other side. The composition of that side may vary, may include more than one political party (in France the left has always got more than 40% but on occasion they were as many as 4 significant contenders). Elections are thus decided on two factors, where the 20% lean and how many of the 40% of each side will stay home on election day. There is in general very little transference between the 40% blocks and when that happens to a significant amount able to decide a momentous election it is in time of perceived major crisis (the apparition of gaullism in France in 1958; the Reagan democrats; Chavez in 1998).
Now, for the psychological part. The stability of those 40% blocks reside on many things but one thing is the difficulty for people to admit they were wrong for so many years. If you have voted for Chavez each and every time since 1998, voting next month for Capriles ain't gonna happen. What is going to happen is that it will be the first time you do not vote for Chavez and stay home deliberately.
I am a little Varianzas all by myself :-)
PS: I should add here that one of my neighbors told me that he would not vote for a jew. Maybe I have underestimated the reach of chavismo antisemitic display?