UNM alumnus Justin Delacour has gathered some international publicity lately by questioning the practices of Venezuela's best-known polling companies.
In an online report, "Can You Believe Venezuela's Pollsters?" Delacour accuses Venezuela's largest polling firms of being against the country's president, Hugo Chavez.
Delacour, who graduated from UNM in December, also got publicity on campus last semester after he brought Charles Hardy, a pro-Chavez advocate, to lecture about his experience as a missionary in Venezuela for 17 years. The lecture turned into an emotional exchange among members of the audience.
"The reporter made me sound like a real cry-baby," Delacour said of the Daily Lobo's article on the lecture. "But I wasn't upset. I kind of liked the ruckus."
"Certain things about Venezuela I choose not to pose as an expert on simply because I haven't spent time in Venezuela," Delacour said. "But the interesting thing about the pollsters is that somebody who's never set foot in the country is a little bit ahead of the game in terms of investigating these guys. These reporters who are right there have not investigated their sources of polling - or maybe they have and just ignore it."
Delacour hopes to organize an event in April similar to Hardy's presentation to mark the one-year anniversary of the failed coup attempt in Venezuela that occurred last year. He said he has some video footage that contradicts what was broadcast on Venezuelan television and he has plans to get more. He said he wants to show the collected footage and explain the contradictions
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Delacour's article focuses on two of the biggest polling firms in Venezuela. Delacour describes the men as "openly and virulently anti-Chavez" and he uses their statements to the press and to their clients to support his assertion.
"Everybody has political views," Delacour said. "But if you really want to maintain your credibility as a pollster you don't broadcast your views all over the Venezuelan and American media."
His report claims that the polling firms' practices exclude people in Venezuela's lower economic strata. Even using a telephone poll in Venezuela will yield inaccurate results, since half the population does not own a telephone, Delacour said.
He added that the Venezuelan poor are generally Chavez's biggest supporters.
Widespread knowledge of the pollsters' political stances is coupled with unethical polling practices, Delacour said.
He believes this results in opinion polls that are skewed in favor of the opposition. Delacour suggests that the resulting boost to the anti-Chavez contingent's opinion of its own strength contributed to the violence of last year's coup attempt.
Delacour's hopes his report adds to the debate over mainstream press coverage of Venezuela
In his article, Delacour mentions one reporter who disclosed some unflattering facts about the opposition's activities. That reporter, CNN cameraman Otto Neustald, shot footage of an opposition general rehearsing his statements two hours before last April's coup. The general said on film that Chavez was "massacring innocent people with snipers," indicating the general's foreknowledge of the use of snipers at the event.
According to that report, Neustald confirmed the footage and the general's foreknowledge. One month later, he resigned from CNN and retracted his statements, according to Delacour. Delacour cites Neustald as one of several journalists who has suffered repercussions from the Venezuelan opposition.
Delacour said he wants to obtain Neustald's footage to show at the event he is planning for April. With that footage, plus the footage he already has from the day of the coup, he said he will show what really happened and how the media manipulated the facts.
The paragraph:Delacour, who has never been to Venezuela, said his knowledge of Venezuela's current political situation originates from participation in the work of UNM's Latin American Database and claims to be more informed on the political happenings in Venezuela than the country's own media.
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