Jueves, 27 de septiembre de 2012

Sea alto o bajo el número de indecisos lo cierto es que este grupo puede decidir las elecciones en una carrera cerrada.

En un artículo publicado por Foreign Policy, Daniel-Lansberg Rodríguez analiza el tema:

..Henrique Salas Römer, a former state governor who was Chávez’s principal opponent during his first presidential race 14 years ago, refuses to take the polls at face value. “The idea that so many people would actually remain undecided thirty days before a presidential election is absurd,” he told me. “Those ‘undecideds’ are not Chavistas. They can’t be.”

Here’s what he means. Since the risks of being openly pro-Chávez are low and the benefits of supporting the famously clientilistic regime can be quite high, it stands to reason that people who will eventually vote for Chávez would admit it right off the bat. In contrast, those supporting the opposition may not be quite so comfortable speaking openly against the regime — even if only to share their supposedly anonymous voting preferences with pollsters. “Polling outfits contact people in their homes, and that can make people feel threatened,” explains Salas Römer. “People are understandably on guard.”

Y luego:

Should Salas Römer’s assertion prove correct, and if it turns out that fear is actually motivating Capriles voters to hide their preferences, then the challenger is likely to gain a majority. Of course this scenario also assumes that these covert opposition supporters are still willing to cast their votes against the government even though they’re afraid to speak publicly against it.

Puede haber mucho de esto, claro. Pero hay otra posibilidad poco favorable para la oposición: indecisos que dicen que van a votar, pero en realidad no ven esta elección como un asunto de vida o muerte. Electores que no odian la política ni sienten repulsión por ambos lados (porque de lo contrario no dijeran que van a votar) pero que al mismo tiempo no están lo suficientemente motivados para hacer cola un centro de votación en vez de quedarse en casa viendo DirectTV.

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