Ms. M. Maxwell ‘Bisram Uses Information Selectively’ (SN, Nov 23) accused me of sinister objectives regarding my polls charging they are done to benefit the incumbent PPP. Maxwell is a sycophant of the opposition and judges me based on that political lens. He attacks my polls and feels PPP/C will not win the elections. My NACTA polling has repeatedly and consistently found the PPP/C way ahead of the parties. On Monday evening, according to the poll, Donald Ramotar will be declared the winner of the Presidency and the PPP/C a fifth consecutive victory since democracy was restored in 1992.
I am not now nor ever was a member of the PPP/C. 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 it clear that I am not a partisan pollster and I challenge Maxwell to show me where the NACTA Guyana polls were ever wrong.
My modus operandi is, and 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 to conduct opinion surveys in the country.
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 four different entities have conducted polls. APNU claims its poll shows it getting 40% and its nearest rival at 30% (presumably PPP/C).  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 PPP just 5 % ahead of PNC which is 2% ahead of AFC.
I was informed on Thursday that Equality News conducted a poll showing the AFC ahead of the other parties and will form the government with APNU.

My TUF friends tell me they have not conducted a poll but their ground work shows the PPP/C
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. Another phone poll shows the party getting 55%.
NACTA’s independent, professionally conducted, unbiased polls show the PPP/C 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 leveled at me have merit.
Maxwell makes reference to Prof Rishi Thakur’s letter criticizing the use of 44% of Indians in the poll.
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.

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 only to me and the poll’s findings showing the PPP/C winning and not the Clive Thomas poll or the AFC poll or the Equality poll which does not show the PPP/C winning.
Aren’t voters lured to their polls showing them winning? Is he saying, in effect, that people believe only the Bisram poll and the NACTA determines which party wins or loses elections?  May I remind Maxwell that in 2006, Dick Morris polls showed the AFC winning.

Using his logic, why weren’t voters lured to that party which secured only 8% support. The answer is Maxwell knows the NACTA poll is on target as will be proved on Monday night.