Nicaragua: Ex-Supervisor Reveals M&R Consultants Bogus Polls
Homes where citizens will be interviewed are pre-selected in areas known to have state workers and Sandinista families.
HAVANA TIMES – An experienced field supervisor for public opinion studies conducted by M&R Consultants, owned by pollster Raul Obregon, revealed how M&R polls are “fabricated.” The process involves selecting in advance the households to be surveyed—those located in areas with concentrations of state workers and families with Sandinista traditions. The names and addresses are provided by the FSLN political commissars in each territory.
The former M&R employee, who asked to be identified as Mario to protect his identity, explained that given the fragmentation of the FSLN’s former social base, only two out of ten so-called “Ortega-Murillo supporters” are genuine. Mario worked as a supervisor on many of M&R Consultores’ “public opinion studies” and says, “The compañera [Rosario Murillo] draws almost unanimous rejection.”
On Wednesday, July 16, 2025, the company’s owner presented his latest “findings” on national public opinion, highlighting that 94.8% of Nicaraguans supposedly believe there is freedom of expression.
Obregón claims: “98.7% of Nicaraguans perceive there is peace in Nicaragua.” Mario, however, points out that M&R must meet the regime’s demands, and whenever supervisors find unexpected results, they immediately inform the M&R office, which instructs them to leave the area and head to another pre-selected location.
Most people refuse to give opinions to the pollsters—even members of the regime’s so-called “social base” like FSLN militants, state workers, police, and army soldiers—because, according to Mario, they fear the M&R polls are not just propaganda tools for the dictatorship but also a way to collect information about people’s views, which could later trigger repressive actions.
Polls Filled Out in Bathrooms and Parks
When conducting interviews, respondents usually have no problem answering questions about things like garbage collection, for example, but they immediately refuse to address political issues, Mario says. This forces pollsters to “doctor the questionnaire to get answers,” which contaminates the polls. “The pollsters have to make sure all the questions appear answered,” Mario explains.
Respondents also refuse to answer questions about personal or family income, considering it a strictly private matter. They fear what the state might do with such sensitive information, Mario adds.
Pollsters are required to complete a certain number of interviews each day, and their daily pay depends on this quota, creating a perverse incentive to fill out the surveys themselves with the expected results for M&R Consultants.
The veteran supervisor told CONFIDENCIAL that “many pollsters hide in public bathrooms or in parks with few people to fill out the questionnaires,” completely invalidating the surveys.
Political Commissars Watching in the Neighborhoods
If the data processing does not produce results favorable to the regime, then, according to supervisor Mario, the statistics are “adjusted” at the data processing office until the expected numbers are reached.
Supervisors and pollsters must go into neighborhoods wearing T-shirts identifying them as M&R Consultants, because public opinion surveys are banned in Nicaragua. However, Raul Obregon’s company has free access to conduct them. Moreover, Mario notes, they must deal with FSLN political commissars who closely monitor their movements almost everywhere they go.
Mario has observed that regime agents have orders not to allow outside pollsters into their territories. As a result, companies like Cid Gallup cannot conduct in-person polls in the neighborhoods and instead carry them out by phone from Costa Rica. Mario, who also worked as a supervisor for Cid Gallup, knows that most Nicaraguans refuse to answer such calls because they fear state security agents are recording the conversations and might punish them for their opinions.
Only Statistics Favoring the Dictatorship Are Published
On July 16, 2025, Obregón presented the results of what he calls “the 81st edition of the Public Opinion Monitoring System” of M&R Consultores, based on 1,600 “interviews” in 15 departments of the country. He announced the main “findings”:
“The government management of co-presidents Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo maintains an 86.7% approval rating. Furthermore, 82.7% believe Nicaragua is heading in the right direction, and 87.2% say they feel hopeful about the government’s work.”
In March 2023, M&R Consultants claimed that 92.6% of Nicaraguans perceived peace in the country, and 92.3% believed there was economic and social stability. Each year, these percentages have supposedly increased. In the results presented on Wednesday, August 16, both supposedly reached 98.7% and 98.8%.
“The indicators we saw today show that Nicaraguans continue to be drawn to the wonders of the Sandinista People’s Revolution. Their perception is that democracy is consolidating, and basically, for Nicaraguans, Daniel and Rosario are leaders who inspire confidence and reflect a hope. That belief for this period rose to nearly 87%,” said M&R Consultants director Raul Obregon at the end of the presentation.
First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.