New Poll Registers Evo’s Public Support at 59%

A new poll published in the Sunday edition of the La Paz daily La Razon reports that President Evo Morales’ public popularity has risen in the last month to 59%. The new poll was conducted by the Peruvian public opinion firm Ipsos Apoyo Opinión and was carried out between July 19-27. Morales’ approval ratings were up 5% since April, according to the survey.

If accurate, and if that increased support translates into actual votes in this coming Sunday’s national ‘revocatoria’ vote, it would signal that Morales is headed toward a second affirmation of his historic December 2005 election mandate.

But of course Bolivian polling is tricky business in all situations and especially against the backdrop of such intense regional polarization. The ‘ifs’ in this case are substantial.

First thing to notice here is that the poll was carried out only in the four largest cities in the country – La Paz, El Alto, Santa Cruz and Cochabamba. On the one hand, that leaves out a big portion of the country where anti-Evo sentiment has certainly increased since his December 2005 election (with just more than 53%), including the cities of Sucre and Tarija.

On the other hand, if the poll really was carried out only in the four cities, as the La Razon report suggests, and not in the rural areas outside those cities, than it is likely to underestimate Morales’ support there, and by a lot. Bolivian polling has been notoriously inaccurate when it domes to Morales, with none of the 2005 surveys coming even close to predicting his historic landslide in December of that year. Morales rural base is far stronger, as a rule, than his urban support.

A Morales victory that beats his 2005 election would have a huge political impact, reinvigorating his political momentum after a year in which it has been almost completely stalled by demands for regional autonomy and open conflict over a new Constitution and demands by Sucre to have it declared Bolivia’s capital. It would also likely jump start a new effort to bring the embattled MAS-drafted constitution to a national vote, a move bitterly opposed by MAS opponents. The proposed constitution would allow Morales to stand for re-election in 2010, something he is currently unable to do.

However, if the poll is wrong and Morales’ vote slips below the 47% needed to keep him in office – under the odd and complex voting formula approved by Congress – that will set off a new round of Presidential elections within 3-6 months, with Morales the far and away front runner.

I have this prediction…

I will make no predictions about the outcome on Sunday. And anyone who does is really just guessing in the dark.