President Nana Akufo-Addo
The ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) enjoys a significant advantage of about 15 percentage points over the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) when it comes to public confidence in the ability to deliver on campaign promises, a CDD-Ghana Pre-Election Survey has indicated.
Giving highlights of the survey conducted between September 28 and October 16, the CDD release signed on a joint letterhead with the USAID by Communications Team Lead Josephine Appiah-Nyamekye Sanny, said the respondents “deem the election campaigns of the main parties largely issue-based.”
The report said “Covid-19 has significantly worsened the already difficult economic circumstances of many Ghanaians. Nonetheless, they remain cautiously optimistic about the future. Assessments of the performance of the Akufo-Addo/NPP government are broadly positive.”
“They get particularly high grades for their handling of the Covid-19 crisis, electricity and education,” they said but added that “the public is less impressed with the administration’s handling of inflation, bridging inequality and curbing corruption.”
The report said that “Ghanaians are split on the direction of the country. While almost half (47%) say the country is going in the ‘right direction’ the same proportion say the country is heading in the ‘wrong direction’.”
On attitudes to elections, the report said that “Ghanaian commitment to the ballot box remains strong, anchored in the belief that elections do matter and their votes would make a difference.”
“They express equally strong commitment to the rule of law, and peaceful means, mainly the use of the courts (instead of violence) to resolve election disputes,” adding “They put a very high premium on peaceful elections, strongly abhor election violence, and would like to see perpetrators of election violence given jail sentences.”
With specific reference to the December 2020 polls, the report said “the public expresses broad confidence in the integrity and competence of the EC and its ability to deliver a free and fair election 2020.”
“They deem the EC’s level of preparedness together with other election-related state and non-state agencies (particularly the military and police) adequate. Most importantly, they express broad confidence in the EC and allied bodies’ ability to deliver a credible Election 2020.”
It also said that “levels of trust in the EC and other non-party state and non-state bodies directly and indirectly involved in delivering peaceful elections with credible outcomes are generally high, particularly for the military, police and media.”
The report however said that “there is considerable apprehension about violence by party and candidate supporters,” adding “they remain concerned about the activities of party vigilantes – which is underscored by the desire of eight in 10 respondents in our survey for armed security personnel present at the polling stations.”
“Serious concerns remain about the integrity of the vote count and result transmission process. A large minority – more than four in 10 – express concerns about the wrong vote tally being announced, and about a third are not confident that their vote would be counted (concerns that are far higher than 2016).”
They said “This is the likely reason why a substantial majority of respondents want to see independent domestic and international observers present for the polls,” adding “it looks like most eligible Ghanaians are registered to vote, and many are planning to vote.”
“Nearly all respondents reported that they are registered to vote; nine in 10 indicate an intention to vote, and the likelihood of Covid-19 depressing voter turn-out in the December polls is downplayed.
“They used a sample size of 2,400 yields, a margin of error of +/-2 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.”
By Ernest Kofi Adu