Ghana is marching to 2020 election and all candidates are so wild trying to win the hearts of Ghanaians to vote for them. The two major political parties in Ghana who are likely to engage in fierce battle to take the flag of Ghana and lead Ghanaians into the promised land are The New Patriotic Party and The National Democratic Congress with Akufo Addo and John Mahama being the flag bearers respectively.
However, due to the outbreak of the novel Coronavirus, major percentage of the campaign exercises are taking place on social media, television stations and FM stations unlike previous years where campaign rallies are organised. Campaigns comes with promises which candidates use to convince Ghanaians to vote for them.
Several Ghanaian major news portals have conducted several online polls between the rulling president, Akufo Addo and the former president,John Mahama.
JoyNews conducted an online polls which ended and as usual NDC took the lead. Over 42, 000 people participated and from the results collated, the NDC has 57% while the party in power NPP has 43%.
The voters also are of the view that Dr. Bawumia the Vice president has failed Ghanaians as he has been unable to arrest the depreciating cedi and also level of press freedom in the country and the lack of competency by the rulling government.
After the Joy news poll, popular Ghanaian blog and news website, yen.com also conducted another poll. Yen.com think candidates are still making promises towards the 2020 Election, is only right that the public has the chance to judge which among the them honours his promises and so Yen.com put a Facebook poll to compare the flag bearers of the two major political parties in the country; National Democratic Congress and New Patriotic Party.
After the poll ended. John Mahama emerged Ghanaians favourite as he was voted as the best president who honours his campaign promises with 66% of the total votes while Akufo Addo bagging only 34%.
The big question is, should Akufo Addo and Bawumia be worried about these online poll results?
NDC has won almost all online polls conducted by many institutions in the previous years but they were still disappointed.
Could these poll results be some kind of mind games being played by NPP members? Well, I don’t think NPP should jubilate over past experiences at all.
From the ongoing polls, it seems the current government might have the shock of their lives just as the NDC in 2016 if care is not taken by the NPP to address the issues raised by the voters, this is because, majority of this year’s election is taking place on social media platforms and other media outlets due to the outbreak of the corona virus. This should imply that this year, social media will have major influence on the election results.