Poll indicates 3-Horse race

Latest Research International poll indicates 3-Horse race: Nana Akufo-Addo maintains big lead

The latest opinion poll on who wins the presidential nomination for the New Patriotic Party has Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo still maintaining a comfortable lead, ahead of the other 18 aspirants. His closest rival Alan Kyerematen, with 23% is about 12 percentage points behind. But with 35%, Nana Akufo-Addo may still fall short of the desirable 'one touch', which will require 50%+ of the approximately 2,340 party delegates' votes at the December national congress.

The nationwide poll conducted between October 8-15 also appears to confirm the long-held view of pundits that the contest is at most a three-man race, with Aliu Mahama scoring a decent 17%. The poll conducted in all 230 constituencies by Research International, a member of the multinational Kantar Group, has the three top candidates sprinting away from the pack of 19 with 74.38%. Yaw Osafo-Maafo, who came fourth scored a distant 4.9%. In fifth place was Kwame Addo-Kufuor with 4.13%, trailed by Papa Owusu-Ankomah (3.31%), K Frimpong-Boateng (3.03%), Hackman Owusu-Agyemang (2.66%), Dan Botwe came ninth with 1.55% endorsement, with Kofi Konadu Apraku in the tenth position with just 1.56%.

The remaining 9 candidates scored a total of 3.21% of the sampled opinions on which aspirant should win the December 22 national congress of the governing party. With the party yet to select the 10 delegates from each of the 230 constituencies, the pollsters focused on 1,150 of the total number of 2,300 NPP constituency officers. Overall they managed to speak to 1,089 of them, achieving 95% of the target. This one-item poll posed a straight question to those sampled: ‘Aspirant I will vote for.’

According to the latest poll, Nana Akufo-Addo has the endorsement, by some margin, of his party’s constituency officers in both the party’s ‘world bank’ (Ashanti Region) and ‘rural bank’ (Volta Region), where he scored 27.8%, with Mr Kyerematen second and the Vice President sharing third place with Dr Addo-Kufuor with 11.1% of the poll. Out of the 172 constituency officers spoken to in the biggest electoral zone in the country, Ashanti Region, 41.3% chose Nana Akufo-Addo as their preferred candidate. He was followed by Alan Kyerematen, who scored 27.9%, Aliu Mahama, 9.3%, Kwame Addo-Kufuor, 6.4%, and Kofi Konadu Apraku 4.7%. Only constituency officers in Manhyia, where Dr Addo-Kufuor is the MP, refused to respond to the poll. Akufo-Addo also took strong poll positions (48.1%) in Eastern, his home region, Brong Ahafo (43.9%) and Central, where with 36.9%, his nearest rival, MP for Sekondi, Papa Owusu-Ankomah managed 20.4%. With 25.4%, Nana beat Alan by only 1.6% in the most competitive region, Greater Accra, where all but two candidates managed some support.

Mr Kyerematen responded with 33.7% endorsement to come first in the Central Region, where Nana Akufo-Addo came second with 31.6%., followed by Mr Osafo-Maafo with 10.5%. Alhaji Aliu Mahama, who came third overall, won in the three northern regions. In the Upper East he scored a huge 45.9%, replacing Akufo-Addo, who came top in the earlier RI poll. Same in the Northern Region, the Vice President overtook Akufo-Addo’s earlier lead with 39.2%. In the Upper West, the Vice President maintained his earlier lead with 43.8%, followed by Alan with 31.3%.

The RI study is the first opinion poll to include all 19 men who have picked up nomination forms, including Ghana’s ambassador to Japan, Baafuor Agyei-Bawuah and Kumasi-based lawyer and serial contestant, Kwame Kodua. The two scored zero endorsement from all constituencies.

Also failing to attract 1% of support were Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey (0.92%), Arthur Kennedy (0.73%), Kwabena Agyapong (0.55%), Felix Owusu-Adjapong (0.46%), Boakye Agyarko (0.37%), and in 17th place, Nkrabeah Effah-Darteh (0.28%). Michael Ampong, a spokesman for Alan Kyerematen said his camp is "not perturbed" by the poll results. While welcoming it as a useful indicator for the Alan team to "intensify our efforts" Mr Ampong however added, "We know that the poll is not a true reflection of what is on the ground." He told Citi FM yesterday evening that Mr Kyerematen was going to win and "it’s going to be massive. You take my word for it - very big. We’re winning." He still did not rule out a run-off, but again added "mark my word there won’t be a second round. We’re winning." Reached for his comment by another station soon after that Citi interview, independent pollster and a sympathiser of My Kyerematen, Ben Ephson said it was looking like a run-off, with My Kyerematen, who placed second in the poll with 12 percentage points behind the leader, as nevertheless the only candidate who is guaranteed a place in the two-man possible second round. Speaking on Joy FM, Ben predicted that the margins among the other aspirants are all going to narrow, with Alan staying constant around 25%. Joy FM also reached a member of the Osafo-Maafo camp who said the camp would not be "worried" at all about the latest poll results. Research International is a market research company, founded in 1962 and part of the Kantar Group, the parent company for WPP’s worldwide information and consultancy interests. Research International has offices in 50 countries, including Ghana (Cantonments, Accra) and employs approximately 2,500 people across the world. It specialises in qualitative and quantitative custom market research. Research International’s genesis was the market research division of Unilever. To this day there remains a very strong link, with Unilever a major client in all significant markets.