Dear Editor,
Balwant Persaud said he conducted an unscientific poll in August 2011. Mr Persaud said he interviewed fifteen hundred Guyanese but failed to provide a proper representative sample of which races he interviewed and in what percentages. Now, in fairness to Mr Persaud, he did admit he did not conduct a scientific poll. But what I am interested in particularly is the question of the undecided vote, which Mr Persaud states was 18% in his poll. In the 2006 election, some 31% of the electorate stayed home. Polls for 2011 have consistently shown the non-voting or undecided voting bloc will again be a major force for the 2011 election. I know that people are fed up with political parties across the spectrum and in particular the two main wreckers in chief of Guyana in the PPP and the PNC. But what I would like Mr Persaud to comment on is who exactly is fed up with the political process and decided to become the undecided and the non-voting bloc.
Are we talking voters of all ethnicities equally spread, or are there concentrations with respect to ethnicity, class and location (urban vs rural)? Are we talking younger voters or older voters who are predominantly undecided or an equal mix? I would appreciate Mr Persaud’s commentary on this issue.
Yours faithfully,
M Maxwell
