A good post on the other Venezuela, slightly marred by a bad translation

In comments, there a mention of the Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights blog, coordinated by David Smilde of the University of Georgia. The link went to an excellent post by Rebecca Hanson on how the protests have not yet reached the working-class western half of Caracas.

The post is worth reading. It brings home two things. First, although there have been protests in Chavista neighborhoods since the violence, they are not typical.

Second, it shows why the opposition gained so much ground in the last election, coming within a hair’s breadth of victory. It isn’t that poorer voters have enthusiastically embraced the opposition as much as their faith in the Socialist Party has waned. That said, they have turned to the opposition with their votes; it is not just a matter of lower enthusiasm. Consider this chart using data from the IDEA:

Between 2006 and 2012, as crime rose and shortages began to appear, the opposition vote increased by over two million. The Socialist vote also increased, but by much less. Now, the voting-age population increased by a little over three million: either the opposition won 80% of all voters aged 18-24 (unlikely) or substantial numbers of people switched their vote between the two elections.*

From 2012 to 2013, without Chávez on the ballot, the Socialist vote shrank while turnout remained stable. (And remarkably high!) The opposition vote grew again. This time the evidence of vote-switching is impossible to miss.

Moreover the swing towards the opposition was quite uniform across the country, as you can see in the below county-level map.

These data indicate Chavismo losing quite a lot of popular support, which should not be surprising given both that the Socialists lost Hugo Chávez’s unparalleled political skills and presided over a rapidly deteriorating economic and security environment. 

For a great post that really brings home the government’s waning support, read this. It’s from Counterpunch and written right after the 2013 election.

Which brings us to the mistranslation in Hanson’s (excellent!) post. At the very end, she recounts seeing a banner draped over a pedestrian bridge on Sucre Avenue. (I have lifted her photograph and posted it below.) She translated it as, “If you want to get to the government win elections! Get tough on organizers of violence!”

That’s not quite right. A better translation would be: “If they want to take office, then they should win elections! Crack down on the violent demonstrators!”

* Approximately 410,000 adults died in Venezuela of various causes between 2006 and 2012. Adding that number to the growth in the voting-age population produced an estimate of roughly 3.5 million first time eligible voters aged 18-24 in 2012. If they turned out at the same 82% rate as everyone else, then there were roughly 2.9 million new voters aged 18-24 in the 2012 election. The opposition increased its votes by 2.3 million over the same period. Without vote-switching by existing voters, the opposition would have had to have gained 80% of their votes (or 79% if we round off all numbers to two significant digits in making the calculations).

Comments

[shah8]

A couple of points:

1) Maduro's lasting injury so far is to his left, and not to the right, essentially from corruption and urban/rural divides. The MUD is still a collective of opposition forces, with smaller parties that don't have financial and organizational firepower as the further right (original centrist COPEI and DA) elements.

2) That lasting vulnerability to his left wasn't targeted by the MUD in the municipal elections of 12/2013, as they put out an effectively neoliberalish program as well as run against Maduro's public figure, especially on his competence. This turned out to be ineffective as it resulted in a serious loss of those gains from the national plebiscite.

So the shift to the MUD in the national election wasn't very permanent. It does suggest that the MUD can win a majority if they were to tack more to the left, or figure out how to outflank Maduro to the left on some issues. Of course, they'd actually have to *want* to do that. What I think will happen is that one of the sane elements of MUD will break off and try to build more currently centrist/flexible rightist party that makes a bigger effort at actually convincing people that they have a good path forward.