IMANI's 6th PULSE episode

The NPP and NDC seem to take seriously how the conduct of their members and officers is reflected in these analyses. The NPP’s positive sentiments, however, improved significantly from 10.71% to around 15.76%. This trend follows the previous month’s trend of NPP having more positive sentiment information on social media. The NDC's positive sentiment increased slightly by 2%, from 9.50% to 11.38%.

Purely negative sentiment over the period decreased for both party candidates. People who spoke negatively of NPP fell from about 17% to around 12%, showing that the trend where NPP had fewer negative sentiments continued within the period. NDC also had their negative sentiments fall, albeit by an almost 3% margin.

Here are some reasons for the results:

The public stance on the issue of LGBTQ+ by candidate Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia on the auspicious occasion of the Eid celebrations contributed much to his positive sentiments on social media. Additionally, his visit within the same period to the Vatican led to more mentions as well as positive sentiments over the period, with less negative sentiment. Also to be noted is his renovation of the Jakpa palace, which also led to many positive and less negative sentiments.

For candidate John Dramani Mahama, a few positive sentiments that are emerging and might be even bigger in the very immediate future are positive sentiments around the ongoing power crisis (Dumsor), as well as the issue of taxes, especially import taxes, with one viral video of candidate Mahama reviewing import duties.

Additionally, and more significantly, the outdooring of his vice candidate, Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, has boosted interactions on social media significantly, with over 4 million reaches on the day of the unveiling alone, and perhaps more if the NDC were minded to maximise Prof. Jane Nana-Agyemang’s outing to keep SM alive. On the day in question, positive sentiments were over 70%. Possibly, the SML scandal and its reports and recommendations also triggered more negative sentiments for the NPP, which resulted in more positive comments for the NDC.

NPP still leads in mentions on social media. However, in the last period under review, the NDC has closed the gap in mentions. The NDC actually leads when it comes to non-social media reach. This includes sources like blogs, websites, podcasts, and the like. Discussions regarding Mahama’s candidacy and the ongoing power crisis are dominating the narrative.

The biggest hashtags associated with the mention of Mahama are as shown below.

Another emerging hashtag that seems to be gaining traction is "#togetherforchange2024", which is associated with the most positive sentiment mentions.

In the case of candidate Mahama, the keyword “Ghana” triggered the most mentions, with a social reach of over 30 million; however, it had far fewer engagements in terms of comments and shares. An almost comparative sample of both candidates was taken to ensure a more granular comparison of metrics with relation to mentions and engagement.

People are also more responsive to party-related events, and several issues will be brought up in future sentiment analyses, where sentiments towards specific issues will be analyzed to see if they have bearings on overall sentiment. These will make for a more interesting reading of the space.

The period under observation for this edition of the report is from March 26 to April 29, 2024.