Gustavo Coronel en el Latin American Herald Tribune

Coronel: Gallup’s Venezuela and Legatus’ Venezuela: Two Different Countries


Two different polls ranking the 10 highest countries in the world in prosperity (Legatus) and Well-Being (Gallup) have recently been released. Gallup ranked Venezuela 6th; Legatus ranked Venezuela 75th. Latin expert Gustavo Coronel takes us behind the irony of the numbers.
LEGATUM Prosperity Index Top Ten
Norway
Denmark
Finland
Australia
New Zealand
Sweden
Canada
Switzerland
Netherlands
USA
Venezuela, Position #75

GALLUP POLL

Well-Being Index
Top Ten
Denmark
Sweden
Canada
Australia
Finland
Venezuela, position 6
Israel
New Zealand
Netherlands
Panama

By Gustavo Coronel

In the tables above we can see how two prestigious institutions, The Legatus Institute and Gallup present the list of the ten highest countries in the world in prosperity (Legatus) and Well-Being (Gallup) (see links for details).
The meaning of both rankings is very similar since one would think of a prosperous society as one having a high quality of life and would picture a thriving society as one made up of contented, optimistic citizens.
Further, one would think that happiness and high quality of life are intimately related. The two rankings above would seem to confirm these intuitive assumptions. Almost all of the countries in the top ten of Legatus are the same top ten countries in the Gallup poll. One notable exception is Venezuela; number six in the Gallup poll for 2010 and seventy-five in the 2010 Legatus Index, way down the line.
The Legatus ranking is a composite of eight areas: Economy, Opportunity, Governance, Education, Health, Security, Personal Freedom and Social Capital. In Security and Governance Venezuela is ranked 95 and 96 out of 110 countries, near the bottom of the pack, while in personal freedom is ranked 80 out of the 110 countries. In other words, according to this index Venezuela is a poorly governed, non-free and extremely unsafe society while, according to the Gallup Poll, Venezuelan society is one of the happiest and most thriving in the world.
The Legatus index also mentions other international rankings for Venezuela which also suggest extremely poor social conditions in the country, such as: Position 22 of 139 countries in global competitiveness, position 174 out of 179 countries in economic freedom, position 162 of 180 countries in the Corruption Perception Index. Only 17% of Venezuelans, says Legatus, trust their neighbors and only 23% feel safe living in the country.
How can we reconcile these two perspectives by equally prestigious institutions? Can both of them be valid? Could one of the exercises be flawed? Or, perhaps, both?
This is important to elucidate, as the Venezuelan political regime, one of the most despotic and damaging to Venezuelans in its entire history, is making much delighted noise about the Gallup Poll, while keeping mum about the Legatus findings.
For all it is worth the mechanics behind the two exercises are very different. The Legatus index is built of 89 different variables and measure wealth, well-being, health and freedom. The Gallup exercise is a poll of some 1000 people in the country, who have essentially been asked, “how do you feel today and how will you feel five years from now”?
It would also seem that the results of the Gallup poll changes significantly from year to year. In fact, Venezuela’s ranking for 2010 is 14 points higher than for 2009. In previous rankings, 2005-2009, four Latin American countries: Costa Rica, Panama, Brazil and Mexico all had a higher position than Venezuela in the poll, and so did the USA. But only one year later, Venezuela had a considerable higher ranking than those countries, although its measurable social and economic conditions were, if anything, worse than before.
Obviously these discrepancies are higher than we should normally expect and merit an explanation from both Legatus and Gallup. In special Gallup, whose index shows bigger deviations from what it would seem logical. The position of Venezuela in the 2010 Gallup Poll should have come with an asterisk since it represents an abnormal finding. Surely Gallup would have noticed this major deviation and would have also been aware that this ranking could become (as it has already become) a hot domestic political issue as Venezuela nears presidential elections.
An explanation, especially by Gallup, is in order if credibility and transparency are to be maintained.

Gustavo Coronel was on the Board of Directors of PDVSA from 1976 to 1979. He was Chief Operations Officer (COO) and acting CEO of the Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana (CVG), the $35 billion Venezuelan government conglomerate designed to exploit and run all of Venezuela's mineral, metal and mining operations, from 1994-1995. He was President of Puerto Cabello -- Venezuela's main port -- from 2001 to 2002.
Coronel was author of the Cato Institute study
"Corruption, Mismanagement and Abuse of Power in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela"
and was the Venezuelan representative to Transparency International from 1996 to 2000. In 1994, he founded Pro Calidad de Vida, an NGO promoting anti-corruption techniques in government and civic education for children in Venezuela, Panama, Paraguay, Mexico and Nicaragua.