A pre-election survey by the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) has revealed that the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) enjoys a significant advantage over the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) when it comes to public confidence in the ability to deliver on campaign promises.
The findings place the NPP at a 15 percentage point over the NDC.
According to the report, assessment of the Akufo-Addo and NPP government is broadly positive, giving them particularly high grades for the handling of Covid-19 crises, electricity and education.
However, it also states that the public is less impressed with the administration’s handling of inflation, bridging inequality, and curbing corruption.
The findings are noted to have generated a general disagreement amongst about half of the general public, who tend to quiz whether or not the country is heading in the right direction.
The survey further highlights that though the NPP enjoys public confidence, there are concerns regarding possible violence during the elections, leading to calls for armed men at polling stations.
“There is considerable apprehension about violence by party and candidate supporters. 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,” it said.
Director of Research at CDD Ghana, Dr Kojo Asante advised that the issue ought to be handled with care by security agencies, in order to prevent an unexpected turn of events.
Methodology
Every adult citizen had an equal chance of being selected for 2020 pre-election survey.
A national representative sample of 2,400 adult citizens was randomly sampled and distributed across regions and urban-rural areas in proportion to their share in the national adult population.
Face-to-face interviews were conducted in the language of the respondent’s choice (a standard English questionnaire was translated into Twi, Ewe, Ga, Dagbani and Dagaare).
Sample size of 2,400 yields a margin of error of +/-2 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. Fieldwork (or data collection) for the 2020 pre-election survey was conducted from September 28 to October 16, 2020.
Below is the full report: