Creation of new regions will influence election 2020 -Researcher

The creation of six more regions making it 16 regions would contribute to the outcome of the 2020 elections, a Socio-Economic analyst, Mr. Frederick Appiah-Kusi has noted.  

He said the new biometric voter register for the current 16 regions will be analysed in their voting pattern of the old ten regions.

The researcher said those regions that voted for NPP when they are in power for their second term as it happened in 2004 when a new voter register was compiled in 2004 contributed to the 85% national voter turnout.

According to him, this turnout was based on the performance of the NPP in their first term as in this case from 2017 to 2020.

Mr. Appiah-Kusi, who is also an advocate of NPP agenda and researcher  said in a presentation that other  factors that may influence the 2020 elections would be based on major sectors of the economy and national development policies and manifesto promises that were fulfilled in each of the respective governments of both NPP and NDC.

He mentioned some of these factors as Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE), Capitation fees, free SHS, School feeding programme, GETFund Investments, Scholarships in the area of education;

Economic Growth, Human Development Indicators bordering on poverty reduction, LEAP in the economic sector  as well as investment in the Bui Hydro Power, Independent Power Producers, PDS, Energy Sector Legacy Debt repayment in the energy sector.

The senior Lecturer, author, researcher in economic, educational, political and development policies also  referred to employment of teachers, nurses, health, enhanced agricultural sector in crops, poultry, fishing, livestock, export commodities, planting for food and jobs and infrastructural development in roads, rail, electricity, water and  housing as  contributing factors in the outcome of the impending elections.

Mr. Appiah-Kusi also mentioned Oil infrastructure and investments for exploration, the One District One Factory (1D1F) in the area of Industry and Manufacturing; Small Mining Concession and Galamsey phenomena under Mineral Resources Investments and the Banking Crisis and Insurance in the Services Sector.

Based on the following, Mr. Appiah-Kusi, who is also the Founder of Development Policy and Research Advocacy, Ghana (DEPRAG) and Action for Human Settlement, Education and Development (AHSED), said the NPP would win 11 regions in an estimated voting pattern of the 2020 elections with an expected voter turnout of 12,776,811 (75.25%) based on the provisional voter register of 16,963,306 million.

Taking into account the voting pattern of each region in the 16 regions, he said there are nine to 11 regions that traditionally vote for NDC which include, Volta, Oti, Northern, North East, Savannah, Upper East, Upper West, Bono East, Bono and Western North with estimated total votes of 5,834,149 to be obtained by NDC.

He said NPP on the other hand had three regions traditionally voting for them these are Ashanti, Eastern, Ahafo, and in the 2004 and 2016 elections other three (3) regions these are Western, Central, and Greater Accra known as SWINGE REGIONS.

NPP may have estimated total votes of 6,759,660 since these regions have a higher voter population of over 6 million per his analysis.

The NPP agenda advocate however, enumerated factors that might affect attitude of voters against the NPP which he said included lack of political education of voters on NPP achievements especially on the banking crisis and revocation of licenses by the regulator which is Bank of Ghana and not the Executive, failure to deal with corruption perception of appointees and being transparent to expose all anti- corruptions investigations along the failure to prosecute past government appointees.

He also mentioned failure to reduce number of Ministers and Deputy Ministers to assure well-meaning Ghanaians that future government will have lean Ministers and Deputies not above 75; failure to engage Civil Society Organizations with reservations about government conduct on major policies though their misgivings were mostly not based on facts and empirical evidence or research and the failure to pay all customers of collapsed banks and Micro Credit and other Financial Institutions and Intermediaries.

Mr.Appiah-Kusi said the Perception that government officials are involved in mining galamsey and failure in their duty to fight galamsey even after issuing Community Small Scale Mining Concessions, Propaganda by opponents especially Minority Members of Parliament consistent exposure of genuine government policies and the weekly NDC party engagement of the media especially on corruption tracker and infrastructure.

The senior lecturer  and researcher, who  has been consistent in analyzing the voting pattern using the elections from 1992 to date, said also that the failure to deal with the feminine factor of NDC vice presidential candidate that may influence the voting pattern if few female organizations openly support her adventure though PPP has a presidential candidate contesting on their ticket who was a former vice presidential candidate in the 2016 elections and failure to seek divine direction as the NPP allegedly did in 2016 elections could  go against them (NPP).

Mr. Appiah-Kusi reminded the NPP that the intellectuals and professionals who usually vote for them are becoming disappointed in their failure to educate and consult in major policies especially in education and health including infrastructure such as the establishment of an Airport at Cape-Coast.

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