Positions on ballot play a critical role in elections – Dr Kobby Mensah reveals

A Marketing Lecturer at the University of Ghana Business School, Dr Kobby Mensah has said positions on the ballot paper play a significant role in Ghana’s elections and therefore the governing NPP and NDC will benefit immensely depending on how they strategize, come December 7.

According to him, historical trends show that the smaller parties who have occupied the top positions in the past have benefited significantly from the polls.

The governing NPP and the largest opposition are placed first and second on the ballot paper and have started some brand and marketing strategies to attract voters, particularly independent ones.

“Now when you look into our trends [historical], and I have been analyzing our electoral trends now, apart from the two parties-NPP and NDC, whenever the lesser endowed parties actually occupy the top positions, guess what they have made gains. And that actually suggest that the theory really works,” he mentioned on an Accra based radio station monitored by MyNewsGh.com

“So, I look at one CPP, PNC and GCPP. Whenever each of these parties had occupied the top position, of course, they had occupied with different candidates so the candidate power comes in. Whenever they had occupied at the top of the ballot that is between one and two, they had made gains,” he emphasized.

He further noted that the NPP and the NDC are blessed to occupy the first and second positions.

“I was telling Samson that if you look at the position of NDC and NPP that is a given. It has always been occupied by Nduom whether he was on CPP ticket or he was on PPP ticket that tells you about the candidate’s brand strength.”

“Because we have the party brand strength, the party strength and then, of course, the policy brand strength and then the rest of thing…factors that contribute. So, given that the NDC and NPP whoever becomes first and second Nduom has consistently maintained third which means his brand is huge. So, position besides the party and candidate brand strength plays a major role in our politics today,” he emphasized.