A new baseline elections survey has pitched the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) as leading in popularity among parties contesting the 2024 elections. But its frontrunner, John Mahama falls behind the ruling New Patriotic Party candidate Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia as the preferred presidential candidate.
Dr. Bawumia leads by 38.9% according to the survey which was released today, June 5, by Professor Smart Sarpong, a researcher at the Kumasi Technical University.
However, his party, the NPP comes in second place (at 34.5%) to the NDC in terms of popularity.
“NDC leads in popularity (with 38.8%) as the political party respondents are likely to support in the coming election as at close of April 2024. The popularity of NDC is higher than the NPP in Bono East, Greater Accra, Northern, Oti, Savannah, Upper East, Upper West, and Volta,” the survey notes. Nonetheless, both parties are at par in terms of popularity in the Western North Region, although the Western Region presented the most floating voters holding 38% of undecided party supporters.
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Using a sample size of 59,547 voters selected from all 275 constituencies, the researcher highlights that the North East Region is more favorable to Dr Bawumia, as 60% of voters sampled have decided to vote for him during the period surveyed. For the NDC’s John Mahama, he holds more popularity in the Volta Region, with 75.7% of decided voters.
The survey concludes that the deciding factors for candidates who may win the December polls concern competence, track record and party affiliation. “These three factors alone
constitute 91.9% of deciding factors.”
However, “unemployment, improvement in the economy, poor roads, water, power crises, illegal mining, LGBTQ rights, corruption, poor sanitation” are also critical
issues manifestos must seek to address head-on,” the researcher notes.
