FOR non-Guyanese not familiar with the Guyanese colloquial term, “jumbie,” it means a ghost. Yesterday, (Wednesday) Guyana saw a jumbie poll putting the PPP as losing parliament and jumbie people who did the poll. It was Guyanese Vishu Bisram who introduced Guyana to jumbie polling by jumbie people. Space would not allow for an elaboration but Bisram said he has been doing surveys in Guyana the past 40 years but no one knows who does them, where they are done, where Bisram office is or the name of the business.

In yesterday’s edition of Kaieteur News, a jumbie poll by jumbie people was reported in the letter section signed by a man named Khemraj Harryram.  No one knows who Harryram is. No one ever heard about Harryram before 2025. Even a moron knows who is using the name Khemraj Harryram.  In case you don’t know who is writing under that name, it is the world’s most educated human, a Guyanese who says he has six doctorates and six master’s degrees to his name.

The jumbie poll has the PPP losing 4 seats and WIN gaining 13 seats with 21 percent of the vote. Even in the glorious days of Peter D’Aguiar’s United Force party, with the British and Americans pouring everything into defeating the PPP, the United Force did not win 21 percent of the vote.   It got 12.4 percent. Even in the phenomenal days of the AFC, it only got 10.3 percent of the vote.
So Harryram told us that the poll was conducted by a group of university students and funded by a diaspora business company based in New York.  The world’s most educated man is a silly fellow. A poll cannot be conducted by a group of university students. A survey has to be designed and shaped by social scientists because it is one of the social sciences’ most complex academic exercises.

The role of students is to do the fieldwork, and there is nothing complex about that. They ask the questions from the questionnaires that the experts prepared. So Harryram did not tell us who the intellectual authors of the survey were. Look at the dimensions of the thing and you will see it points to the world’s most educated man.

First, no name is listed, not even one of the students. Secondly, the sponsoring company is not identified. Thirdly, Harryram is a very privileged person in that he and only he got access to the results.  But there is something even more asinine. A survey about the 2025 election results was done by a business company and Harryram had to publicise the results through the letter pages and not as a news item. Doesn’t that remind you of the style of the world’s most educated man?

Now read this: the poll results were sent in letter form to the Stabroek News and the paper sent back an email asking for details of the company and the academics who worked on the questionnaires. But Stabroek News was informed that the students and the company do not want to be identified.  Who does that remind you of? Of course, the world’s most educated man.

Here is what I know. I have been told that two polls show a sizeable increase in the PPP’s seats. I have not been given any information as to the names of the organisations that did the surveys. I will now add my speculation since I have done no opinion sampling. I think the PPP will win a majority and I believe the personality of Irfaan Ali will bring about that.
I am not downplaying the achievements of the PPP government but I think the personality of Irfan Ali will be a significant factor in the PPP’s tally of seats. I have no certainty about the width of the margin of victory for the PPP. My guess is that it will be between 4 and six seats giving the PPP either 37, 38, or 39 seats.

Those seats are going to come from multi-racial balloting and will be secured from new voters and from people that voted for the APNU+AFC in the last election. I see the PNC losing substantial seats, a loss of which the PNC has not endured since 1957.  I do not believe any small party except WIN will win a seat. WIN in my assessment, will probably pull one of two seats and it will come at the PNC’s expense and mostly from African youths. But I do believe that WIN over the months of July and August has been badly damaged so it is anyone’s guess what it might get.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.