Leftist protests in defense of imprisoned ex-dictator Nicolás Maduro “do not at all represent the Venezuelan people,” upwards of 90 percent of whom are grateful to President Donald Trump for Maduro’s arrest, Ruben Chirino Leañez, the CEO of the Venezuelan polling firm Meganálisis, told Breitbart News on Wednesday.
Meganálisis published a poll on Wednesday sampling public sentiment in every Venezuelan state and the Caracas federal district finding overwhelming majorities of people supportive of Trump’s action to arrest Maduro – wanted in the United States on narco-terrorism charges – and his wife Cilia Flores. The poll also found significant majorities of Venezuelans supporting America becoming the country’s principal ally and trade partner, the dismantling of the socialist security apparatus, and giving power to opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado.
Asked “Are you grateful to Donald Trump?” regarding the Maduro operation, which is not believed at press time to have harmed any civilians, 92.2 percent of Venezuelan respondents said yes. Another 6.3 percent opposed the operation, while only 1.5 percent said they did not know what to think.
The survey also asked respondents if they felt intimidated into silence by the ruling chavista regime Maduro left behind, currently nominally run by “vice president” Delcy Rodríguez. Asked “Do you feel or believe that you could be detained if you manifest or express yourself publicly against chavismo?” 83.5 percent said yes, suggesting that even the 6.3 percent who denied feeling grateful to Trump may be an inflated number.
The poll also found strong support for cooperation with the United States – the status quo of Venezuela prior to late dictator Hugo Chávez taking power in 1999. Asked “Do you agree with the U.S. becoming the principal ally and only provider of products for the Venezuelan state?” 90.6 percent of respondents said yes, while only 7.3 percent said no.
These results contrast significantly with the outburst of leftist protests throughout the West in defense of Maduro following his arrest on January 3. From Madrid to Buenos Aires and New York, socialists organized rallies calling for Maduro’s freedom. In Caracas, Rodríguez and top chavista enforcer Diosdado Cabello, himself a wanted alleged drug lord, claimed that Maduro and Flores were “abducted” and are demanding their release.
Notably, none of these protests for Maduro featured any prominent Venezuelan presence. On the contrary, several of them attracted Venezuelan exiles who challenged the protesters, asking them what part of Venezuela they were from and receiving no answer, or sharing their tales of socialist trauma.
“It’s incredible, I don’t know why there are people here with Venezuelan flags. Are they Venezuelan? Do you know what happens in Venezuela?” one Venezuelan in Buenos Aires, baffled by the leftist protests, asked. “It’s like when they have Cuban flags – do you know what happens in Cuba? … Seriously, can you blame – it’s ok, you invent this, capitalism, all this, but it’s incredible that this happens. How can it be that these people are here defending a dictator who has the Helicoide, the largest torture center in Latin America?”
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Speaking to Breitbart News on Wednesday, Chirino Leañez, the president of Meganálisis, stated effusively that the social science he has conducted for over a decade shows that the Venezuelans disgusted by the leftist protests are more representative of the country than the Maduro supporters. The protests, he explained, “are not representative at all, in absolute terms.”
“I would dare to say, with absolute certainty, that one of the countries with the least left-leaning tendencies in the world is Venezuela,” Chirino explained. “And someone will say, ‘Well that doesn’t seem to correspond [to the socialist regime there]’ – of course it doesn’t correspond, because the country has been abducted by a leftist government system.”
“That does not represent, not more than six or seven percent of Venezuelans, and that percentage, in its maximum expression of barely seven percent, is under coercion and government pressure,” he continued.
“91, 92 percent of Venezuelans would go out into the streets to protest” if it were not for the socialist colectivos, armed paramilitary gangs, and other repressive weaponry, Chirino predicted. “What is happening, those leftist movements do not have any representational value to the opinion of Venezuelans.”
“They only represent, if we are talking about Venezuelans – which, by the way, look, they are mostly not Venezuelan, those leftist people – if they have any agreement with some percentage in the country, it is not more than those percentages I just mentioned — six, seven percent, and under extreme pressure.”
“Voluntarily, I think that in the country really, leftists, we are talking about three percent or four, at the maximum, those that have no clientelism or a reason to depend on the state,” he concuded. “Those leftist protests around the world do not at all represent the Venezuelan people.”
The three percent of authentic leftists that Chirino identified appears to correspond to the support for Interior Minister Cabello, the power controlling the colectivos that are terrorizing the streets of Caracas in the aftermath of the Maduro arrest. Asked in the Meganálisis poll released this week, “Which of these chavista leaders do you trust the most?” 2.9 percent named Cabello – six times as many as named Delcy Rodríguez. Notably, however, 90.9 percent responded, “Nobody.” Another 93.5 percent said that they do not agree with Delcy Rodríguez leading a transition away from Maduro, prompting serious questions about her ability to lead the population.
President Trump has repeatedly stated that the United States, through Rodríguez, is controlling the country. The majority of respondents in the poll disagreed; 66.9 percent said they believe the chavistas are still in control.
“That perception is fed … by the state terrorism unleashed by chavismo,” Leañez stated. “For Venezuelans, true control of the country by the U.S. goes hand in hand with the liberation of all the hostages and political prisoners, and the end of the repressive and persecuting apparatus that chavismo has.”
President Trump is expected to meet with opposition leader Machado at the White House on Thursday and has vowed to help end the reign of poverty and violence that Maduro presided over for more than a decade.
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