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2020 elections: Electorates to vote more on issues than party loyalty

 


A recent poll by iPollgh shows that electorate’s loyalty to party is waning as more people describe themselves as independent and fewer people automatically vote for the party they sympathize with.

A plurality of respondents said they typically voted for the party with the most compelling message in an election and this was true across all demographics.

According to the poll, 57% of respondents who are graduates said they will vote for a party with most compelling message as against 20% who said they will vote for a party that they are a member of or support. Again, 56% of post graduates respondents said they would vote for most compelling message while 21% said they would vote for a party that they belong to. Interestingly, 58% of Junior High School respondents said they would also vote for a candidate or party with a compelling message.

Read also: Ghanaian women have less financial decision-making power- Afrobarometer survey shows

On election 2020 itself, good governance and the economy emerged as the top two issues for respondents to the survey. Health was surprisingly the least mentioned factor, considering that the world is in the midst of a global pandemic that has killed nearly three hundred Ghanaians and caused the government to promise new hospitals across the country.


From the survey, 27.7% of the respondents said good governance would be a significant factor in deciding which candidate to vote for in the upcoming presidential elections. While 27.6% said economy was most significant in influencing their choice of candidate. 18.7% said job creation was more significant to them while 8.1% said corruption. Interestingly, only 4.5% of the respondents said infrastructure was significant to them despite the debate it has generated between the two main political parties.

Meanwhile, majority of the respondents said they make the choices in the parliamentary elections based on local issues. This could see more split votes, known in local parlance as “skirt and blouse”.

Speaking on the survey, Kwame Appiah -the Lead Pollster, explained that survey reveals that voters are quite engaged with the political process and assessing the issues in order to make their choices.

He therefore advised politicians to focus on the “issues, be consistent and have well thought out plans that voters would be convinced by.”

 

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