President Nana Akufo-Addo will retain his mandate with an average performance of 52.3%, a new poll by the Centre for Social Science Research (CSSR) of the Kumasi Technical University (KsTU) has predicted.
According to the poll, Ghana’s main opposition leader bearing the flag of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), ex-President John Dramani Mahama, will place second with a best performance of 47.1%.
The study, which used both subjective opinion poll and data-based prediction, revealed a one touch for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Presidential candidate with his worst performance predicted to be 51.4%.
The research, which was led by Dr. Sarpong Smart Asomaning, a statistician, research and data analysis consultant, said a total of 8,800 prospective voters responded to the online survey, with many of them from the Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions where the voter population is high.
It picked 2,546 of the respondents from the Ashanti Region, 2,016 from the Greater Accra, 746 from Volta Region, 704 from Western Region, 645 from Eastern Region, while the least of the respondents (33) were from the Savannah Region.
According to the poll, the majority of the respondents (4,982), representing 56.6%, preferred President Akufo-Addo to any of the other presidential candidates, while some 2,975 representing 33.8% said they wanted the NDC presidential candidate, Mr. Mahama.
Some 618 people, representing 7.0% preferred candidates of the other political parties, and 235 respondents (2.6 %) said they would vote for the independent presidential candidate.
Election Determinants
The poll indicated that respondents based their voting decisions on education, health, corruption perception, road, agriculture, employment and other social and economic issues, with the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy of the NPP Government rated as the most popular.
According to the poll, over 70% of the respondents were in favour of the Free SHS policy, whereas road infrastructure came second with 33% and the remaining percentage going for other factors such as corruption, health infrastructure, the big push policy, 1D1F and banking sector cleanup.
December Polls
It said largely the citizens “foresee a free and fair election come December 7, 2020,” with 15.6% indicating otherwise.
The KsTU poll indicated that only about 0.6% of the respondents to the study were unable to pledge to be agents of peace before, during and after the elections.
Voter Turnout
The poll said there would be a high voter turnout in this year’s election with a percentage of 83.99. The Ashanti Region would lead in the turnout which would be followed by the Northern Region.
KsTU study revealed that the ruling NPP was most likely to win seven regions and named them as Ahafo, Ashanti, Bono, Central, Eastern, North East and Western regions.
The opposition NDC is also likely to win seven regions of the country, according to the poll, and mentioned them as Northern, Oti, Savannah, Upper East, Upper West, Volta and Western North regions.
By Ernest Kofi Adu