Did the UNDP Report on Democracy in Latin America Get Misinterpreted?

Andrés Oppenheimer makes a compelling argument that the recent United Nations Development Program report on democracy in Latin America was misinterpreted:

You may remember that the UNDP report on democracy in Latin America, released April 21, stated that 58 percent of Latin Americans agree that heads of state can go beyond the law and that 55 percent of Latin Americans would support an authoritarian government if it solved their economic problems.

Democracy fails to win over Latin Americans, cried the headline in The Financial Times the next morning. Latin America losing hope in democracy, report says, lamented The New York Times' headline. Economic problems imperil democracy, warned The Herald. Democracy on the ropes, said Business Week.

Well, not so fast. Marta Lagos, the director of the Latinobarometro polling firm that conducted the study of more than 19,500 people in 17 Latin American countries for UNDP and five other sponsors in 2002, says the UNDP report misinterpreted the figures.

''I'm amazed that UNDP would want to show that Latin Americans are more authoritarian than they really are,'' Lagos told me in a telephone interview. ``I don't know whether they manipulated the figures for political purposes, but the UNDP report misrepresents our data.''

According to Lagos, the real number of Latin Americans who agree that presidents may go beyond the laws is 38 percent, and the number of those polled who said they would support an authoritarian government if it solved their economic problems was 50 percent.

But another question showed that only 25 percent of Latin Americans think that there can be economic development without democracy, she said. ''There are a lot of contradictions, but there is an overall support for democracy of about 60 percent,'' Lagos said.

Lies, damn lies and statistics, I suppose. Clearly this is encouraging news and as one who has expressed concern about democracy in Latin America, I'm thrilled to be eating crow. The question now remains, however, if Ms. Lagos' comments will get the kind of attention. Somehow I think the old adage that you can't unring a bell will hold true and that is certainly unfortunate.