Bisram got it wrong

Dear Editor,

Vishnu Bisram’s letter of November 9 in SN says it all concerning his polling acumen in terms of polling results and their interpretations (‘The country needs consensus and compromise’). Mr Bisram, based on his previous polling in Guyana and Trinidad and his ramblings on American polling, is shown to be wanting in every direction one looks, and his failures as a ‘pollster’ are obvious to anyone who takes a hard look at his track record. But the real proof of the pudding is located in his letter-writing on political topics, and one can see not only a tendency to make himself much more important than he is, but a certain tendency towards bias, which, on many occasions, is clear and obvious. His attempt to correct me after my letter on November 8, does not change the fact that I am not a pollster but predicted twice in SN, long before the US election day, that Mr Obama would win a comfortable victory, and that is exactly what happened. Mr Bisram, on the other hand, who has the experience as a pollster and has moved on to become a political commentator, got it all wrong.

Editor, since Mr Bisram always informs us of his academic background and his credentials as a teacher in New York, maybe it’s time for him to take a sabbatical from polling and political writing, catch his breath, and get to grips with the fact that every letter he writes and every poll he conducts is so full of holes that any positive elements contained in them seep out first, and the reading public is left with sheer nonsense.

Yours faithfully,
Cheddi (Joey) Jagan (Jr)