Voters cautioned to beware of deceptive political messages ahead of Dec polls

Senior lecturer at the Political Science department of the University of Ghana, Dr Kwame Asa-Asante, has cautioned to be mindful of deceptive campaign messages from politicians as the December 7 polls draw closer.

He has urged voters to carefully and critically analyse messages from the various political parties, in order to make an informed choice.

He was speaking on TV3’s Election Watch last Sunday.

According to him, during elections, political parties develop propaganda to deceive people into believing them, at the expense of the real and crucial issues.

Dr Asa-Asante indicated two main propaganda techniques used by politicians are what he calls the “bandwagon” and “name-calling”.

He explained the “bandwagon” involves taking pictures from seemingly crowded rallies, publishing them on TV and in newspapers, to convince the public to join one’s party, because of the impression created that a lot of people are in that party. He cautioned prospective voters about this sly technique.

On the “name-calling”, Dr Kwame Asa-Asante explained that it involves negatively branding some people, by giving them certain names, which are trivial, just to deviate attention from critical issues needed to be considered.

“Please as voters, we should be very careful about this. Listen to parties that have messages, and listen to messages that will be able to inure to your benefit. Messages that will influence your life positively; messages that will go a long way to make you a better person. Any other thing, throw it into the ‘lake of fire'”, he cautioned.