OAS meeting rejects Vishnu Bisram as credible pollster

Aug 24, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The OAS hosted its annual Peer Review Meeting at the Miami International University in Florida. The confabulation was held to examine general conditions in the Caribbean and specifically to look at election campaign finance legislation in the Caribbean.

Those presenting case studies at the sessions were: Kenneth Monplaisir, Chairman of the St. Lucia Elections Commission; Peter Wickham of the Caribbean Development Bank; Steven Grinder, Advisor to the General-Secretary of the OAS; Paul Spenser and Pablo Zuniga representing the US Department of State; Professors Trevor Munroe and Cynthia Barrow-Giles of the UWI, Ramesh Deosarran of the Trinidad Senate and Sheila Holder of the Parliament of Guyana.

One of the conclusions of the sessions is that the countries of CARICOM should not recognize the poll results of Mr. Bisram of Guyana and Mr. Ramsamoosh of Trinidad.

The conclusions were that both men are working for Indian political parties and are inventing polls to serve the purposes of those parties. The sessions heard a complaint for a Barbadian pollster who told the gathering that his poll results were lifted whole-scale and presented as the work of a so-called pollster in the region. The meeting agreed to form a Caribbean Association of Pollster to be funded by the OAS.

The decision was taken to investigate both Bisram and Ramsamoosh. Guyanese media workers who need to know more about the discrediting of Mr. Bisram at this important conference of the OAS should contact Mrs. Holder who represented the Guyana Parliament.

It says nothing good for this country when other high-ranking officials from other countries could indict Mr. Vishu Bisram but right here in Guyana we could not see through the games this gentleman was playing even though Mr. Bisram’s findings were facetious, comical, incredible and highly unbelievable.

Mr. Bisram should have been sent packing last week after he did the most ridiculous thing – found that Dr. Leslie Ramsammy was the most popular Cabinet Minister. Ordinary people, but not us in the media, immediately latched on to this bizarre explanation.

The ordinary folks that go about their business without any pretense at being political observers came up to me and said, “Freddie, this is the same man de sey killed Waddell?” In a country dangerously divided like ours along racial lines, half of our population would not see Ramsammy in a good light. Even the Stabroek News Editorial yesterday took the position that Ramsammy’s credibility is in jeopardy.

Yesterday, in his column, Ravi Dev, perceived in this country among many as an Indian supremacist, came to the rescue of his long-standing friend and fellow Indian supremacist, Vishu Bisram. Let me quote Dev, and I will ask readers as they digest the following statement from Dev that they should reflect on the type of politicians we have produced in this country and that want to rule us.

It must be remembered that Dev is the leader of a political party that is represented in the Guyana Parliament. Here is Dev in his own words; “Whatever problems Mr. Kissoon may have about Mr. Bisram’s polls, he ought not to be influenced by Mr. Bisram’s place of employment.”

Mr. Dev knows perfectly well, and I stress the adverb, perfectly, that when we become opinion-makers, public figures and politicians, the public is entitled to know about us – how we earn a living, are we educated enough to engage in the occupation we possess; what is our track record so they can judge us.

Mr. Dev is either ignorant or feigning ignorance in that he knows that Mr. Bisram wrote more than twenty three times (I researched it) that he has been conducting polls for an organization named Nacta over a 20-year period and that all his life he has been a teacher.

Mr. Dev has to be silly not to know that when asked more than ten times where he teaches, Mr. Bisram goes back thirty years into his life and answered the question that he went to Corentyne High School with Khemraj Ramjattan. Mr. Dev has to be foolish not to know that no one can find in New York, a group called Nacta that has been conducting polls for over 20 years.

Mr. Dev once wrote that I should see a psychiatrist. I replied that I didn’t know where Mr. Dev earned his income but now I know he is a psychiatrist. Mr. Dev’s friend, Vishu Bisram is also a psychiatrist because everyday in last week, he has published a daily letter in the Chronicle examining my mental state using words that I hope Mr. Dev didn’t allow his children to read. But you know the old Guyanese saying; “Show me your company, I’ll tell you who you are.”