The New Patriotic Party (NPP) would take the lead over the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) if the upcoming general elections were to be held now, a research from the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana has indicated.
According to a team of researchers from the department led by a senior lecturer, Dr Isaac Owusu-Mensah, the opposition party would record 49.9%.
The team said the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) would also record a rate of 39.9%.
The team of political scientists further said the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) would also record 5% whiles the Convention People’s Party (CPP) will gather 1.7%.
The National Democratic Party (NDP) would get 1.7% approval and Dr Edward Mahama of the PNC would record 0.2% respectively.
The margin of error is between 2 to 3%.
The 3-month research focused on twenty-four (24) swing constituencies in seven out of the ten regions. The Eastern, Ashanti and the Volta Regions were the regions left out by the researchers.
According to the researchers, 3% of the respondents said they were not ready to vote for an independent candidate whiles 0.9% of the respondents failed to give an answer.
Dr Owusu-Mensah indicated that issues that the respondents said would affect the direction of their votes included job creation, education and healthcare.
He said on education, the respondents explained that they were concerned about their failure to pay school fees for their children due to what they described as hardships in the economy.
On healthcare, the respondents were particularly worried about the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) which they feel had collapsed.
The researchers said the microfinance scam popularly referred to as the DKM might also dictate the direction of voters in the Brong Ahafo region.
According to Dr. Isaac Owusu-Mensah, the respondents argue that the failure of the Bank of Ghana to regulate the microfinance companies makes the government guilty.
“And I want to state the NDC has more work to do to win the elections especially as the party won with not more than 300,000 votes, the NPP has an upper hand…,” Dr Owusu-Mensah said.
These revelations come barely a day after President Mahama said various independent scientific polls clearly show he will win the elections in December.
