Fallas more than Tezanos and other shots in the poll wars

Politicians consume surveys like doses of fentanyl. Journalists are not far behind them. The level of addiction to that substance knows no limits. The more surveys that are known, the more desire there is to absorb the data from the next ones. There is no time to suffer the withdrawal syndrome. A month after a general election, new deliveries are already beginning to appear, although their value is very relative at that time.

Its value as a placebo should not be ruled out. They turn politics, which is managed in a world full of uncertainties, into an activity in which some believe it is possible to reach accurate judgments about what citizens want. And furthermore, it theoretically allows us to know people’s opinions in relation to the measures approved by a Government or the trajectory of an opposition party. Ultimately, there is always the option of blaming the referee and distrusting polls that harm you due to their supposedly perverse influence on the popular will.

The Popular Party has taken advantage of its absolute majority in the Senate to set up a commission of inquiry into the Center for Sociological Research (CIS) and the management of José Félix Tezanos, 78, its president since 2018. Appointed by the Government and confirmed after The 2023 elections, the controversial and often failed results of its polls have been eroding its credibility.

The right-wing press systematically uses the expression “the CIS of Tezanos.” It is not only in that ideological field where Tezanos’ credit has been reduced to little more than zero. Professionals in the sector blame him for making unjustifiable decisions and politicizing the institution.

To begin the work of the commission, the PP has made the strange decision of starting it with the critics of the head of the CIS instead of with Tezanos himself so that he can defend himself from the start. This Thursday, Narciso Michavila, president of the GAD3 company, appeared with whose surveys he has advised the PP since the times of Pablo Casado. Its clients are several companies and media outlets, including the newspaper ABC.

Michavila is in some ways Tezanos’ nemesis. He is the professional who has most persistently criticized the president of the CIS. Their attacks are not much different from those made by other experts in the polling industry. Tezanos has turned the CIS “into a betting house with rigged roulette,” wrote Héctor Cebolla, a CSIC researcher, in May on this newspaper’s Piedras de Papel blog.

The president of GAD3 did not limit himself in the Senate to highlighting the errors of the CIS, but also its working method, which he described as a “black box” from which it is impossible to replicate the results. Regarding Tezanos’ objectives, he was blunt: “I have no doubt that his intention is to manipulate.”

As an example, he gave the disappearance of the barometers specifically dedicated to immigration and defense, supposedly so as not to give results that bother the Government. Furthermore, the center has not asked about the assessment of the monarchy since 2015, an omission that can only be intentional.

Michavila highlighted the CIS September survey (question 9) from which came the headline that immigration has become the first problem for Spaniards (30% affirm that it is one of the three main problems). He did it to point out that that headline is “a lie.” His argument is that the CIS does not group criticism of politicians when faced with this open question. 20.6% say that “political problems in general” are among the three biggest problems. 12.2% comment on “the bad behavior of politicians.” 4.8% mention “what political parties do.” Three different ways of referring to the same thing.

Other experts have highlighted that the order of the questionnaire influences the responses when assessing concern about immigration. In this case, there are several questions before about the inequalities between rich and poor countries and whether they are “one of the causes that explain the increase in the immigrant population in countries like Spain.”

The socialist spokesperson on the commission did not relent when Michavila said that “the PSOE gives the rest of the parties a thousand thoughts about Spanish society.” José Javier Izquierdo’s objective was not to talk about the CIS, which he did not bother to do, but to criticize the person appearing. His first example was the advancement of the elections in Castilla y León by Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, which was based on GAD3 surveys that predicted that he could obtain an absolute majority, which did not even remotely occur. There we must also take into account that Mañueco’s campaign was not exactly brilliant.

Izquierdo directly asked Michavila if he was an advisor to Pablo Casado and now Núñez Feijóo, which is known. Michavila preferred not to answer.

Regarding his failure in the 2023 elections, where he had quite a mess, Michavila did not ignore those mistakes or downplay them: “For us, this is a drama.” Izquierdo reminded him that in that campaign he announced that the sum of the PP and Vox would exceed 180 seats (it remained at 170). Those ten seats were the difference between governing or staying in the opposition.

It should be noted that, although the error existed, what most marked Michavila’s image were his appearances in gatherings and interviews in which he was emphatic about what would happen at the polls. He told it with such conviction that it seemed that the result had already been decided. On May 3, just before the regional and municipal elections, he said that “Pedro Sánchez is going to lose the (general) elections by a landslide.”

In July 2022, he saw it very clearly and predicted that the PP would get more than two and a half million votes from Sánchez by the end of 2024 (in the end, there were 339,119). In reality, Michavila spent that entire legislature making crazy predictions. In April 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, Sánchez was already beginning to be considered dead: “It is evident that at the end of 2021, Sánchez is not going to be in the Government.” The journalists asked questions and it was impossible for him to refuse the bait.

In any case, assessing the errors of the CIS based on the actions of private companies is highly debatable. Everyone can fail, but some do it more often than others and a public company should not settle for being as bad as private ones.

Just before the last week of the campaign for the European elections in June, Tezanos anticipated a socialist victory with about three points of advantage (the ranges were 31.6%-33.2% for the PSOE and 28.3%-30, 5% in the PP). At the polls, the PP won with a four-point difference (33.9%-29.9%). Other strong of those who make an era.

The Senate investigation commission is a trick of the PP to try to wear down the Government. What is even more evident is that Tezanos misses more than a fairground shotgun. It does not seem that Moncloa is unhappy with him, so it must be that he has other virtues for the President of the Government. Maybe one day you will be encouraged to share them with everyone.