More on the Poll Results from Cochabamba

In my Sunday post on Manfred Reyes Villa I wrote briefly about some recent public opinion polling here that reported that Reyes Villa’s public support had plummeted as a result of his new alliance with civicos in Santa Cruz, his demand for a regional revote on autonomy, and the subsequent conflicts and violence in Cochabamba.

Today’s issue of Opinion here in Cochabamba offers a bit more detail on the poll, conducted by the private firm, Apoyo, Opinión y Mercado.

The poll, according to Opinion and the firm’s release in Sunday’s Los Tiempos, was conducted from January 9-16 and included interviews with 1031 adult age men and women in “the cities of” Cochabamba, La Paz, El Alto, and Santa Cruz. The results, just for Cochabamba, look like this:

Percentage of Popular Support

Manfred Reyes Villa (Governor): December 71% -- January 43%

Evo Morales (President): December 62% -- January 54%

Gonzalo Terceros (Mayor): December 51% -- January 45%

The poll reports that Morales’ popular support nationwide hovers at 59%, a drop of three points since December.

There are a few things worth noting in these results (confessions of a former political science major and student of political polling).

First, if the sampling between the four included cities is split about even, that means the Cochabamba sample would be about 250 people, which is pretty small by polling standards and allows for a decent margin of error.

Second, polling is notoriously off the mark in Bolivia, in good part because there can be such a wide difference of opinion between people in the city and people in rural areas. Evo Morales’ popular support, as measured in surveys, has always been widely underestimated against his performance in elections, as a result of undercounting in rural communities. If this poll was carried out, as it says “in the city” of Cochabamba then it may well be that the real story is even worse for Reyes Villa than suggested, and more favorable for Morales. This is based on an assumption, a reasonable one, I think, that Ryes Villa’s base is stronger in the city and weaker in the countryside, and vise versa for Morales.

Third, what the Manfred results say to me is that the events of December and January cost him his long-running political honeymoon as a new governor. 71% support is very high for any politician and not sustainable over time, just as Morales' post-inaugural 81% support was not sustainable. When Reyes Villa stayed out of all the national battles over political power and focused on projects that people saw helping them directly, like water and roads, Manfred enjoyed wide support. When he jumped into the fray, for whatever motivations, he took a match and burned off a third of his base.

There is a lesson in this for all Bolivian politicians. While party activists, social movement leaders, and other politicos are wrapped up in issues of autonomy, 2/3 vs. majority votes in the Constituent Assembly, etc., the majority of Bolivians are much more interested in things like how to pay for all those school materials their kids need as classes start this week and how to get clean water to their neighborhoods. The farther politicians stray toward the first at the expense of the second, the more they can expect to watch their public support slowly evaporate away. Manfred Ryes Villa is learning that lesson the hard way.

As for his strategic decision to spend the three weeks after the crisis touring the US and Europe to make his case, as opposed to staying in Cochabamba and repairing that infamous torched front of the state building – here’s another lesson.

To be clear, it was the opponents of Manfred – the irrigators, the COD, the cocaleros and others – who escalated the tensions into blockades of the city and the destruction of the state building doors. But it was Manfred who set things in motion with his (apparently unconstitutional) demand for a revote on autonomy and it was his backers who deliberately broke through police lines on January 11 and turned a tense standoff of rival protests into a bloody and fatal battle of sticks, machetes and pistols.

Drawing global attention to a set of ugly incidents in which you and your backers also played such a clear role is no more smart than setting fire to a political honeymoon because you are itching to get into the national game. If Human Rights Watch comes to Cochabamba, as Manfred has promised, they won’t be coming to see who burned down antique wooden doors. They’ll be coming to find out the stories behind the dead and the wounded, and that story is not a winning one for Cochabamba’s governor.