Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, Stephen Ashitey Adjei, and John Dramani Mahama
A former executive of the Tema East constituency of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Stephen Ashitey Adjei, says he has been vindicated by a recent survey by a University Professor which showed that majority of voters prefer Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia to former President John Mahama, even though the same voters said they preferred the opposition NDC as a party over the ruling NPP.
Reacting to the poll, Mr. Ashitey Adjei, who is popularly called Moshake, said the poll has not said anything new, but only rehashed what he has been saying since 2017.
“If you have been following what I have been saying, you will know that this does not surprise me at all because all that the latest polls did was to rehash what I have been saying even before the 2016 elections,” Moshake said in an exclusive interview.
According to him, the results is informed by prevailing sentiments that have just refused to change, which is that the NDC is a good party led by a bad, unsellable leader.
“Even before this poll, the Economist Intelligence Unit said same in their poll. We made a big mistake when we elected Mahama as flagbearer. Had it not been for that mistake, the 2024 election would be won easily by us,” Moshake said.
The revelations was from a baseline survey conducted in April 2024. The report showed that 38.9 per cent of the respondents favoured Dr Bawumia, with 36.1 per cent preferring the flag bearer of the NDC, John Dramani Mahama.
The report, however, said the NDC led in “popularity” with 38.8 per cent as the political party Ghanaians were likely to support in the coming election.
The popularity of NDC, it said, was higher than the NPP in Bono East, Greater Accra, Northern, Oti, Savannah, Upper East, Upper West and Volta regions, while both the NPP and NDC were at par in popularity in the Western North Region.
Presenting the outcome of the survey at a media engagement in Kumasi, an Associate Professor of Statistics Research Design and Data Management Consultant, and Director of Research and Innovation, Kumasi Technical University, Prof. Smart Sarpong, said a sample size of 59,547 voters were engaged for the study although 16,557 would have been enough for a voting population.
According to Moshake, the polls confirm what has been on the ground since 2016 when John Mahama lost elections by a margin of 1million votes while serving as incumbent president.
“Ghanaians have just lost interest in JM. As things stand now, it means that if we vote today, the election will go on a run-off and in a run-off, there is no way John Mahama can beat Bawumia.
“As a party, NDC must prepare to take control of parliament but forget the presidency,” Moshake said.
