Dear Editor,
Reference is made to Mr M Maxwell‘s letter, ‘Bisram uses information selectively‘ (SN, Nov 23) accusing me of sinister objectives regarding my polls on the upcoming elections. Although I rebutted him in an earlier letter painting me as “a PPP,” he continues to tie me with the ruling party. Let me reiterate to make it pellucidy clear. I am not now nor ever was a member of the PPP. Many many eons ago when I was just a few years old, I used to accompany Jagat Persaud and his brothers selling the PPP Mirror. But that in no way makes me “a PPP.“ I am not a PPP activist or campaigning for the party. Since the 1960s, I have supported all the parties in the struggle for free and fair elections.
Let me also make clear that I am not a partisan pollster and I challenge Mr Maxwell to show me where the Guyana polls were ever wrong. If there is any bias in my work, it is towards the institutionalization of polling in Guyana. I think the nation needs opinion polls. I am making an effort to fulfil that objective. I welcome other pollsters conducting opinion surveys in the country. We need more, not less, polls. Maxwell and several other individuals are attacking my polls and at times me personally. Instead of attacking the polls, they should conduct their own polls and publish the findings, as Prof Clive Thomas did in releasing the APNU poll, so the nation can have several poll results to compare and contrast support for the parties.
I have been informed that three different entities have conducted polls. APNU claims its poll shows it getting 40% and its nearest rival at 30% (presumably the PPP). My PNC friends tell me that they expect APNU to win the largest bloc of votes and form the government with help from the AFC. My AFC friends tell me that a poll (conducted presumably by their pollster) shows a close three-way division of support with the PPP just 5% ahead of the PNC which is 2% ahead of the AFC. My TUF friends tell me they have not conducted a poll but their groundwork shows the PPP winning and they expect TUF to get representation in parliament and AFC just half the support they got last time. My PPP friends tell me their inside polling shows them with almost 60% of the votes. NACTA’s independent, professionally conducted, unbiased polls show the PPP ahead of PNC by at least 17% and about 30% above the AFC.
So the different polls show sharply different findings. The election results on Monday night will decide which poll is right and whether the criticisms and attacks levelled at me have merit.
Mr Maxwell makes reference to Prof Rishi Thakur’s letter criticizing the use of 44% of Indians in the poll. Mr Maxwell agrees with Dr Thakur that Indians account for only 36% of the population. Mr Maxwell also had penned previously that the election results in Guyana reflected a census. If that is the case, we will know come election night when the results are announced if Indians are 36% of the population. Prof Thakur is a respected educator and analyst. I knew him when we both presented academic papers at Columbia University at the Indian Diaspora Conference in 1988. We met a few times after that in Trinidad at another Indian diaspora conference and a few more times in Guyana.
I think Prof Thakur errs in his analysis of the estimate of the population by ethnicity and the percentage of Indians that should be used in a poll. We will know the correct figures on election night and when the new census is conducted next year.
Mr Maxwell errs in equating the census with voter turnout rate as well as equating popular support with an ethnic census. The PPP has cross-over support from Africans and Mixed and is attracting the bulk of the Amerindian votes. The AFC has the most Mixed support and some support from Africans, Indians and Amerindians. The PNC (APNU) has most of its support from Africans and Mixed and just about 1% of the Indians and 10% of the Amerindians.
Mr Maxwell accuses me of having a self-fulfilling prophecy of luring voters to the winning camp. But he has not explained why that would apply to me and the poll’s findings showing the PPP winning and not the Clive Thomas poll or the AFC poll, the first of which does not show the PPP winning.
Is he saying, in effect, that people believe only the Bisram poll and that NACTA determines which party wins or loses elections? And if that is the case, why then attack me or discredit the poll? The people accept the poll as credible. May I remind Mr Maxwell that in 2006, Dick Morris‘s poll showed the AFC winning. Using his logic, why weren’t voters lured to that party which secured only 8% support?
Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Bisram
