Dear Editor,
In ‘Bisram’s polls originate from PPP propaganda,’ (SN, March 10), Mr Craig Sylvester pronounced that neither he, nor his family nor “Guyanese want their families to suffer another five years under the PPP.” How does he know that? On what basis, has he formed that conclusion? Perception is often different from reality when serious studies are undertaken to test hypotheses or assertions. Conclusions have to be evidence driven, but where are the data to support Mr Sylvester’s conclusion?
Mr Sylvester also accuses me of “producing poll results that originate in the propaganda machine of the PPP” – Wow! That is quite an allegation! Where is the evidence to support it? Last month, PPP General Secretary Clement Rohee fired a broadside against me that was reported for critiquing his party.
I am not a member or supporter of the PPP and I was never hired to engage in propaganda work on its behalf. I do not know of and am not privy to any PPP propaganda machine or the engineers of such a machine. As a political outfit, I would expect it to have one, just as the other parties have theirs, but I am not associated with it and can’t say I ever met its engineers.
I am merely a poll messenger – someone who did a study and published the findings. Others are free to do their own studies and publish their findings. There is nothing in the NACTA poll that is propagandistic. It is based on data collection.
Critics and detractors like Mr Sylvester will never accept poll findings unless the polls show their party winning an election. Unfortunately, that is the prevailing mentality in developing countries and we must break out of it.
Mr Sylvester says he does not have the resources to conduct a poll – it is quite taxing on my pocket. But he can ask his party to fund it and then the public would have the findings of another poll with which to cross-reference peoples’ views.
I do agree with Mr Sylvester on one point, namely the “the incompetence of the PPP” (without getting into details or offering examples), and have penned several commentaries on that topic for which I paid a price at the hands of the PPP leadership. That is a party and government that has not been prone to sound advice which has been offered free in the media and even in private by scholars, other learned individuals and its own supporters. As was revealed to me by many people I met last month in the course of my polling and in previous polling exercises as well, “dem chaps nah listen.”
Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Bisram
