Dear Editor,
I am not going to rehash some of the pervasive concerns with Vishnu Bisram and the cloud of suspicion, manipulation, bias and tampering that perpetually hangs over his ‘polls’ with respect to sample size, sample manipulation, demographic errors, selective sampling, improper poll questions and the like. I am not even going to raise the spectre of whether these polls are even conducted as some have alleged. All of these are legitimate issues surrounding Mr Bisram’s polls. However, I want to delve further. Mr Bisram holds himself out as an accomplished academic and accordingly, one would expect some amount of academic decency, integrity and purposefulness from him. He also represents himself as an experienced pollster with vast polling experience in many nations. So, I am going to directly issue a challenge to him regarding his polls. Where are his poll findings on voting patterns and behaviour of different ethnic groups in Guyana? Mr Bisram clearly polls his sample based on ethnicity and has this information so why in nearly two decades of polling has he never consistently produced his findings to show how different ethnic groups support or don’t support political parties?
In 2006, 20% of voters vanished from the electoral landscape. How does a pollster claiming he is reputable and skilled completely miss this phenomenon? Further, why hasn’t this knowledgeable ‘pollster’ and ‘political scientist’, who travels the world in support of political causes, teaches in First World schools and writes constant letters to the letter columns in Guyana, provide his documented findings surrounding this phenomenon?
Who stayed away and why? Where are the poll findings on the views of ethnic and other groups (age) within the sample on different issues? Has Mr Bisram ever produced his findings on how younger citizens viewed the particular issues he investigated? Has he produced his statistics broken down by regional representation to see how different parts of the country are assessing the poll issues he canvasses? Has he produced statistics from his polls to demonstrate how the PPP lost its majority, apart from uttering blithe references such as Indians staying away without backing up his claims? His most recent poll shows a significant drop of support for the AFC – where are his findings that reveal why? Mr Bisram must know his credibility in the public domain is now firmly in the doldrums. He can at least move the conversation about him in a new direction and gain some modicum of respect as an academic if he is prepared to stop being so selective and manipulative about how he publishes his findings and leads a dynamic discussion on the political metamorphosis of this country.
Yours faithfully,
M Maxwell