Dear Editor,
PROF. Selwyn Ryan, who passed away in Trinidad last month at age 86, influenced generations of scholars of all stripes in Guyana, Trinidad, and around the region from the 1970s ‘til now. He wrote on many topics, including on Guyana and on African nationalism. He has left a strong legacy. There is no other scholar like him in Guyana or the region.

Ryan was the most eminent influential Africanist scholar who trained many budding academicians in Guyana and across the region. We met several times at ISER, St. Augustine Campus, talking about ethnic politics in Trinidad and Guyana, and opinion polling. T&T looked forward to his weekly political commentaries in the newspaper going back to the 1970s, and his opinion polls relating to elections. Ryan was very impressed with, and praised my work as a pollster, and for introducing opinion polling throughout the region.

The late Professor was a giant scholar; there is/was hardly any scholar like him at UWI, UG, or at any other academic institution in the Caribbean. Those of us who studied Social Sciences relating to the Caribbean would have read and cited his works in our research.

No doubt Ryan made an enormous contribution to academia, and to socio-politico analyses in the twin-island republic. But what I credit Dr. Ryan for most was his introduction of polling in Trinidad. Ryan influenced pollsters like me, and survey researchers in Trinidad and throughout the Anglophone Caribbean. We took our cue from him as a leading pollster in the region (apart from Carl Stone of Jamaica). We consulted him on polling; we competed to predict the outcome of elections in Trinidad. He did not poll in Tobago, where I conducted polls for every election going back to 2001.

Ryan was supportive, and encouraged youngsters like me (25 years his junior) to conduct polls; the more the merrier.  Because of his pioneering work on opinion polling in Trinidad, pollsters like me pioneered polling in Guyana (introduced by Prof. Dr. Baytoram Ramharack), Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, Grenada, Antigua, Barbados (Peter Wickham), and several other countries.

(Carl Stone confined his polling to Jamaica, and Ryan to Trinidad). We were/are able to assess popular support for political parties and candidates for office, and project an outcome, allowing politicians to plan or re-orient campaign. The public in Guyana and the smaller islands have been most grateful for our reports on quantifiable support for parties or candidates.

I am most appreciative of Ryan’s work as a pollster. The region is all the poorer without his socio-political analyses.

Yours truly,
Dr. Vishnu Bisram (Pollster/Pol Analyst)