Accept election surveys and work with them - Legon Researcher to political parties

A Senior Lecturer and Researcher at the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana (UG), Legon, Dr Isaac Owusu Mensah, has urged political parties to embrace election surveys and work towards them.

He said election surveys will help political parties to know how they are performing and their stance with the people, in order to improve before elections.

Speaking on Atinka TV’s Morning Show, Ghana Nie, with Nana Owusu Nkrumah, Dr Owusu Mensah recounted how political parties insulted them anytime their polls did not favour them.

According to him, after releasing the polls for the 2020 general elections in November, the department received backlash from the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) for saying that President Akufo-Addo will win with over 51 percent and the NDC a little over 40 percent.

Before the 2020 election, the UG research predicted that 51.7 percent of voters would vote for the New Patriotic Party( NPP) and its Presidential Candidate, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, whiles 40.4 percent of Ghanaians will vote for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and its Flagbearer, John Dramani Mahama.

After the election, President Akufo-Addo won with 6,730,413 votes of representing 51.59 % of the total vote cast whiles the NDC’s candidate John Dramani Mahama obtained 6, 214, 889 representing 43.6 percent of the total vote cast.

The results of the election, therefore indicate that the UG polls were close to accurate.

Dr Owusu Mensah also recalled the insults by the NDC in 2016 when it predicted that the NDC will lose the general elections.

He also noted the insults it received from the NPP when it predicted recently that the NDC could have a majority in parliament because the NPP MPs were not doing well for their constituencies.

He said before the research is done, the department prays to God to seek direction and then later add the scientific bits.

“Polls is part of democracy and so if NPP or NDC likes or not, they should sit down and study what is in the polls and it will help them. In some countries, people pay universities to do research for them but here, we do it with our own resources to let you know what your people think of you and yet you insult us, it does not work like that,” he said.