69% of sampled voters endorse NPP message -CDD Survey

A survey by the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) has revealed that 69% of 2,400 Ghanaians sampled believed the New Patriotic Party (NPP) campaign promises were realistic.

This was the result of the poll conducted in September and October this year, which placed the NPP 11-percentage points ahead of its main opponent, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), which had 58%.

That notwithstanding, 27% and 39% of the sampled respondents held that the promises of the NPP and NDC respectively were either not very realistic or not realistic at all.

Further, 34% of the respondents believed that promises of the smaller parties were somewhat realistic or very realistic, but 58% said it was not.

Again, 32% of respondents said the promises of independent candidates were realistic, whilst 58% said they were not very realistic.

According to the report from the CDD, the respondents were asked: “In general, would you say the promises of the following political parties and independent candidates are very realistic, somewhat realistic, not very realistic, or not realistic at all?”

There was a 15-percentage point difference between confidence in the NPP’s ability to deliver on campaign promises versus the NDC, the survey uncovered.

Whereas 65% believed in the NPP’s ability to deliver on its promises, 50% had confidence in the NDC in the same regard. But, 32% did not have confidence in the NPP’s ability to fulfil the campaign promises, and 47% also had no confidence in the NDC.

The smaller parties had 25% of confidence, and independent candidates had 24%. 68% and 69% did not have confidence in the smaller parties and independent candidates respectively.

According to the survey, 63% of the respondents believed the ruling NPP had generally focused on issues affecting citizens in its campaign, rather than personalities. The NDC had 53%.

On the contrary, the report found that 23% of the respondents strongly disagreed that the NPP campaign was focused on issues affecting the citizens rather than personalities, and 34% disagreed with the NDC.

Meanwhile, the CDD survey reports that: “Ghanaians are split about the direction to which the country is going. While almost half (47%) say the country is going in the “right direction,” the same proportion says the country is heading in the ‘wrong direction’,” the report reads.

The survey further highlights that though the NPP enjoys public confidence, there were concerns regarding possible violence during the elections, leading to calls for armed men at the 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 8 in 10 respondents in our survey for armed security personnel presence at the polling stations.”

The survey methodology, as captured in the report, had a national representative sample of adult citizens. It said all the respondents were randomly selected, with every adult citizen having an equal chance of being selected.

It said the sample was distributed across the regions and urban-rural areas in proportion to their share in the national adult population.

Also, face-to-face interviews were held in the language of the respondent’s choice (a Standard English questionnaire was translated into Twi, Ewe, Ga, Dagbani and Dagaare).

The sample size was 2,400 and yielded 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.

Initiated in 2016, the CDD-Ghana pre-election survey was aimed at picking early warning signals by tracking citizens’ opinion on the overall level of the country’s preparedness for elections; public confidence in the competence, integrity and neutrality of the election-relevant state and quasi-state bodies; and voter behaviour, expectations, priorities and potential turn-out.
With funding support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the survey also helps isolate and identify voter concerns regarding election security, physical intimidation, violence, and perceived peacefulness of the political environment.

 

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