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Dr Maame Gyekye-Jandoh, Head of Department of the Political Science Department, University of Ghana
None of the political parties in Ghana will attain more than 50 per cent of the votes to clinch power if elections were to be held today, a research by the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana (UG) has revealed.
The research gathered the views of 5,000 Ghanaian voters, sampled from 590 electoral areas in 80 constituencies across all the 10 regions, on the performance of the New Patriotic Party-led government since it took office in January 2017.
When asked to indicate which party they would vote for if elections were held today, 2,433 of the voters representing, 48.9 per cent, said they would vote for the NPP, while 1,600 of them, representing, 32. 2 per cent, indicated that they would vote for the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
It also emerged that 3.3 per cent, 1.7 per cent, 0.4 per cent and 0.2 per cent of the respondents indicated that they would vote for the Progressive People’s Party (PPP),Convention People’s Party (CPP), People’s National Convention (PNC) and National Democratic Party (NDP), respectively.
Meanwhile, more than half of the respondents said they would prefer Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and former President John Mahama as presidential candidates for the NPP and the NDC, respectively in the 2020 general election.
Dissemination
The department held a forum in Accra last Wednesday to disseminate the findings of the research.
The study, on the theme: “Voter Perception of Two Years of NPP Government,” was sponsored by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), a German political foundation.
Outlining the key findings of the presentation, the Head of the
Political Science Department, UG, Dr Maame Gyekye-Jandoh, who led the
presentation, said the findings suggested that all the political parties
ought to intensify their operations “if they really want to secure a
one-touch victory in 2020.
She said the study also identified job creation and economic
opportunities as major factors that would influence the decision of a
majority of voters ahead of the 2020 election.
Meanwhile, touching on the performance of the ruling government in the
areas of job creation and economic opportunities, she said only five per
cent of the respondents saw new opportunities emerging, while 43.8 per
cent said opportunities were improving.
“In spite of the many employment-related programmes initiated by the
government, a significant 28.1 per cent said things were getting worse.
How does the government deal with this disconnect?”
“Voters’ assessment of the government’s economic performance shows they
are not satisfied with their living conditions. For instance, 46.5 per
cent said government’s economic policies have not led to improvement in
their conditions. Only 42.6 per cent claimed they had seen improved
living conditions,” she said.
However, assessing the implications of the findings, an Electoral
Historian and Senior Lecturer at the Political Science Department of the
UG, Mr Kaakyire Frempong, said there was “limited communication” about
the activities of the government which, he said, was to blame for the
inability of the respondents to appreciate some of its policies.
Corruption
With regard to the perception of the respondents on corruption, the
study showed that a majority of them, representing 88.4 per cent, “think
there is corruption in the country”.
Meanwhile, one-third of the respondents, representing, 36.2 per cent,
indicated that the government was not involved in the “perceived”
existence of corruption in the country but, called on the President to
lead the fight against it.
In her presentation, Dr Gyekye-Jandoh stated that “there is no strong
indication that the president is fighting corruption, because only 22.9
per cent said the president is fighting corruption by the establishment
of the Special Prosecutor’s office”.
In an interview after the forum, Mr Frempong urged the government to
take the findings seriously because “our electoral history shows that a
ruling party which has ignored such concerns had done so at its peril”.
Source: Graphic online