BY ANDRE BAGOO Wednesday, November 7 2007

VISHNU BISRAM, the man behind the NACTA poll which has accurately predicted the outcome of General Elections since 1995, yesterday called for an apology from those who had attacked his integrity as a pollster during this year’s elections race.

“They owe me an apology,” Bisram said in a statement yesterday, noting that his “character and integrity” had been attacked by various parties. “I feel vindicated that the results have borne out what the NACTA poll predicted.”

Noting that one political party ran advertisements questioning his integrity as a pollster, the New York based teacher and political analyst said such an approach would never have happened in a developed country.

“I live in a developed society and in the United States of America, politicians do not attack pollsters,” he said, in a telephone interview.

Bishram called on the COP to engage in some “introspection” over the issue and criticised Prime Minister Patrick Manning for a comment he made on the campaign trail.

“Manning said all the polls would be wrong. Well the PM got it wrong because NACTA got it right,” he said.

Yet, COP campaign manager Gerald Yetming refused to back-track on his party’s line on the NACTA poll. Yetming had previously said the polls were not “credible” and alleged they were being used to benefit the UNC A.

He argued that the NACTA poll itself may have influenced the final election result, in which the COP failed to win a single seat.

“He has not himself proven to be an independent pollster...,” he claimed, noting that the UNC A had used the poll for its advertising campaign.

When asked if the use of polls was not also a COP approach, Yetming simply noted that his party had used, “a composite of the public polls.” Yesterday Bisram revealed the methodolgy of the NACTA poll which uses in-person interviews on the field to build a preliminary result, which is then reconciled with the results of a second poll conducted by Bisram himself.

Asked if some of the language used in his poll findings betrayed a certain bias, he admitted to using some “poor language” in a few of his press releases.

Commenting on the new political landscape after Monday’s election, he said the current situation will be interesting given the dynamics of opposition politics.