Vernon Daley

Our pollsters and their polls are in a state of confusion and we're all the better for it. The recent publication of some strange and contradictory findings has strengthened a growing view that the polls should be viewed with great scepticism. Pollsters have come to wield too much influence in our politics, carrying within their statistics and graphs, the potential to twist the election outcome.

As I suggested in my last column, voters who are told that their party or candidate of choice is heading for a defeat might ponder seriously whether a trip to the polling station would be time well spent. We have to protect our electoral system from anything that might unduly influence a result - be it intimidation from political thugs, big money seeking a return on party funding or pollsters telling us who is going to win before the first ballot is cast.

Programme for election

Someone suggested on a radio call-in programme recently that there ought to be a law preventing polling from taking place too close to an election. I wouldn't go so far, myself, in advocating the use of the law in this way.

The media houses that commission these polls, however, should put some restraint on themselves.Publishing polls right down to the wire might sell a few more newspapers and hook a few more viewers and listeners but it could also play some part in undermining our democracy by improperly influencing voters.

By the way, it occurs to me that when the Stone Poll organisation was the only game in town, you had to take whatever it was selling. Now, we have several options from which to choose. There are at least four different pollsters now - with different findings.

Despite the protestations of Bobby Pickersgill, the politicians must be loving this. If they don't fancy what Wignall has to say, they can always turn to Johnson and vice versa. And, if they don't like either, they still have Stone and Anderson to fall back on. Competition is a wonderful thing.

Chasing prostitutes

Recently, the police rounded up about 19 prostitutes from the streets of New Kingston under the false assumption they were doing a service to the nation. They were more successful in undermining efforts to deal with the country's HIV/AIDS problem.

Prostitutes are very vulnerable and we have to work with them if we are to have any hope of dealing with this deadly disease.

Chasing them around the bend only serves to drive them underground outside the reach of those who can provide them with vital information.

It seems there is some schizophrenia operating in government. The health authorities have one approach and the police another. We have to get a meeting of minds on this one.

Press attack in Guyana

There has been another attack on the privately owned newspaper, Kaieteur News, in Guyana. On Friday, two armed men reportedly stormed into the newspaper's offices and ordered reporting staff to lie face down. They were apparently searching for publisher Glen Lall who was out of the country.

There is wild speculation about the motive for the attack, with suggestions that it had more to do with Lall's personal life than any attempt to interfere with press freedom. Whatever the true story, this ordeal must have been frightening for the staff, coming just one year after five printing press operators at the newspaper were brutally slaughtered by gunmen.

The incident is likely to add to the climate of fear for practising journalists in Guyana and tarnish the image of the region as a relatively safe place to carry on the craft.