How Facebook successfully predicted Ghana's next president

In the recent US elections Facebook played a crucial role in predicting winner of the polls based on the popularity of the candidates.

Months and days before the US goes to the polls social media trends showed that US President-elect Donald Trump had more fans and followers than Hillary Clinton.

Donald Trump, from almost all the polls conducted on social media, generated a lot of enthusiasm and became popular than Clinton. He became the US President-elect after the polls.

Over 4.3 million Ghanaians have been identified as Facebook users.

In Ghana among the two major political parties – the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the flagbearer of the NPP, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has the largest audience when it comes to top Facebook pages by politics as an industry than the NDC’s John Dramani Mahama.

John Mahama in May this year had 154,773 more votes than Nana Akufo-Addo but by December 5, the NPP's Akufo-Addo had taken over the lead.

Nana Akufo-Addo was projected to win the presidential elections based on social media trends.

The aggregated data suggested that Nana Addo/NPP would win Ashanti, Brong Ahafo, Eastern and Western Regions with possibilities of winning the Central and Greater Accra regions as well. That prediction came true with the NPP winning all six regions.

With Facebook’s poll aiding America’s Trump win the 2016 election, many wondered whether or not a similar situation could happen in Ghana after it predicted a 53% victory for the opposition NPP's Nana Akufo-Addo based on social media engagement, page likes and trends.

Here is a full breakdown of how Facebook successfully predicted victory for the NPP's Nana Akufo-Addo in last Wednesday's elections.

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