Caracas Chronicles

Happy Monday, everyone. A new poll in my Inbox today, this one from IVAD which, as you probably know, usually leans toward the government in its numbers. The highlights:

• 77% of those polled think the government is headed in the wrong direction;
• 82.5% say the country is mired in an economic crisis;
• 78.9% think the country is living a political crisis;
• 63.4% view Nicolás Maduro’s performance in a negative light; 48.4% think it’s either “bad” (22.1%) or “awful” (26.3%);
• 68.6% have little to no confidence that Maduro can solve the country’s economic problems;
• 66.8% agrees with calling a Constitutional Assembly;
• 58.4% thinks Maduro should resign;
• 59.1% think the government is not democratic and is becoming a dictatorship;
• 57% blames government forces for the deaths that happened during the protests;
• 79.5% thinks there are political prisoners in Venezuela;
• 50.9% is willing to vote for opposition candidates for a Constitutional Assembly, while 27.6% would be willing to vote for the PSUV candidates;
• 49.8% of those polled are either opposition or lean opposition, while 32.5% are either pro-government or lean pro-government.

The whole poll is here.

A few things pop out. First, the focus of the poll seems to be Leopoldo and his proposal for a Constitutional Assembly, which is fine. But what is surprising is the strength of the proposal for a Constitutional Assembly: a sizeable chunk of those polled, 41.4%,say they are willing to sign their names to call a Constitutional Assembly.

I think the #2019 faction has to answer a basic question: faced with this scenario, what exactly is the case for stating that we should wait, that now is not the time to act?

(Note: I don’t think IVAD releases its polls, so this is probably a leak; however, it comes from @puzkas).