…says IRI ‘findings’ lack integrity
Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Minister, Gail Teixeira said ‘findings’ from the national public opinion poll conducted by the International Republican Institute (IRI) on Guyana’s electoral reform lack integrity and do not reflect the views of Guyanese.
Teixeira said that any poll conducted in Guyana that involves humans, must go before the Health Ministry’s Ethics Committee. In this regard, no request was made nor approval granted, the DPI reported.
On April 13, 2022, the IRI revealed its ‘findings’ from data it claimed was collected here between January 4 to 24, 2022, which state that a high per cent of Guyanese believe electoral reforms are necessary.
According to the body, the poll was conducted in all regions of Guyana, through face-to-face interviews in respondents’ homes. The IRI claims that the samples consisted of some 1500 Guyanese adults with a response rate of 20 per cent.
Teixeira in the DPI report stated that a survey conducted with a 20 per cent response rate cannot answer for all Guyanese, noting that after thoroughly assessing the survey, it only leaves one to consider whether the questions were asked in a way persons could clearly interpret.
She stressed that one must be convinced that a survey is done according to ethical, scientific and technical issues and that the methodology and the integrity of the survey must be above board.
“We are concerned how it is managed and because of COVID-19 that whether other means of ensuring that the sample that was used effectively so that people in Guyana between January 4 and 24, who were being sampled were able to answer,” the Minister noted.
Teixeira pointed out that 11 per cent of the sample, equivalent to 165 persons above 18, reported that they are not registered to vote in an election, while a further 29 per cent said they did not vote in the 2020 elections.
“So how can you be coming up with a survey response that says that people were not registered to vote when in fact, they were below the age of 18. These are questions that come up when we look at the responses in the document,” she stressed.

Governance Minister
Gail Teixeira