November 03, 2006

Media-Based Fear Campaign is Right's Strategy for Latin American Elections

by Mark Weisbrot

The right in Latin America, allied with Washington, believes it has discovered a winning formula to prevent the spread of left/populist governments that have won power in Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Uruguay and come very close to winning this year in Peru and Mexico.

(In fact, Lopez Obrador may have won in Mexico - we don't really know since the election was very close and plagued by massive irregularities.) It's all about fear.

The strategy didn't work in Brazil in 2002, when there actually was a crisis in Brazil's financial markets at the prospect of a victory by Lula da Silva. He went on to win by the largest margin in Brazilian history and won re-election on Sunday by a margin of 61-39 percent. But if a good media campaign can be organized to scare the hell out of people, it can work, even if there is no basis for the fears generated. In Rachel Boynton's brilliant 2006 documentary, "Our Brand is Crisis," she shows how one of America's most powerful polling and public relations' firms, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, used the fear factor to win the 2002 Bolivian election for right-wing candidacy of Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, who fled the country six months later and is now wanted for corruption and the killing of dozens of unarmed demonstrators against his government. The title is a quote from a GQR strategist. (GQR is currently working against Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua; the election is November 5. The campaign is running TV ads with corpses from the 1980's war and Ortega in military uniform).

It worked in Mexico and Peru this year, where the right also added "the Chavez factor," convincing part of the electorate that a vote for the left was a vote for Venezuela taking over their country. This shows how important the media fantasies are, because in reality - whether one loves or hates Chavez - his government hasn't done much to his neighbors other than loan billions of dollars and sell discounted oil to them, all with no strings attached. And domestically, the majority of Venezuelans have received free health care, subsidized food, and increased access to education - so it's not clear why any voters should be scared of Chavez, even if he were to become friendly with their government. The new left governments of South America are all doing pretty well, with Argentina and Venezuela tied for the fastest growing in the hemisphere, and the Bolivian government of Evo Morales vastly improving its fiscal situation and beginning to deliver on its promises as a result of increasing its control over and revenue from natural gas production.

Now the campaign of billionaire banana magnate Alvaro Noboa, the richest man in Ecuador, is counting on the fear factor to beat left economist Rafael Correa, who he edged out by a 27-23 percent margin in the first round of Ecuadorian presidential elections on October 15. Much of the international press has joined in, referring to Correa as an "ally of Chavez," even though he has only met with the Venezuelan president once. The strategy appears to be working, as the latest polls show Noboa ahead by 15 percentage points. One reason it may work is that Ecuador's memory of the 1999 economic crisis, possibly the worst in its history, is still fresh. But a repeat is unlikely, as the country has since adopted the dollar as its currency, is running a trade surplus, and is unlikely to undergo any serious economic dislocation as a result of the election, no matter who wins.

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