The two major political parties are currently engaged in internal elections to choose their presidential nominees for the general elections that will take place in 2024.
The primary worry of the candidates and the supporters of those candidates has been determining which candidates have the national appeal necessary to outshine candidates from the two divisions.
Former President John Dramani Mahama, a member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), is engaged in a political battle against Dr. Kwabena Duffour, a former Finance Minister and Governor of the Bank of Ghana, and Kojo Bonsu, a former Mayor of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly. Both of these men previously held the office of mayor.
Two candidates—Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen and Vice President, Alhaji Dr. Mahmudu Bawumia—have emerged as the two front-runners in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential primary, although MP for Assin Central, Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, has within the last four months pushed to alter the two-man race to a three-horse race.
There were nine candidates competing for the position of president in the NPP presidential primary. And this is offering a really fascinating perspective on the NPP race, as pundits are asking whether Ken Agyapong’s surge has the ability to upset the Alan-Bawumia two-prong battle. This presents a really interesting perspective on the NPP race.
internal presidential nomination race
Before the candidates can face each other in the major national elections, they must first take care of their candidatures within their respective presidential primaries.
According to the Global Info Analytics (GIA), a world-renowned research organisation, former President John Dramani Mahama will have an easy time defeating his two other leading challengers, Dr Kwabena Duffour and Kojo Bonsu. These primaries will take place before the major national elections.
In both the 2016 and 2020 elections, which were both won by the New Patriotic Party, GIA was at the vanguard of providing accurate predictions for the election outcomes. The GIA polls were conducted between the 31st of March and the 9th of April, 2023.
This would imply that before the general elections, GIA wanted to learn about the potential outcomes of the presidential primaries held by both parties. This would have taken place before the general elections.
According to the findings of Global Info Analytics, former President John Dramani Mahama, who is running for president under the banner of the National Democratic Congress, is currently in the lead over the other two major candidates by a significant margin. It appears that the NDC primary election of this year will play out in a manner comparable to that of 2018.
In 2018, Mr. Mahama blew away the competition with a resounding 94 percent of the votes, forcing Prof. Joshua Alabi and the other contenders to fight for the remaining six percent of the vote. Mr. Mahama was one of around five other candidates in the race.
According to the polls conducted by GIA, Mr. Mahama currently has a dominating lead of 93% in the run-up to the NDC primary that will take place on May 13, this year. This is in comparison to Dr. Duffuor’s 4% and Kojo Bonsu’s 3%.
According to the results of the GIA’s search, there is no candidate that stands out as the obvious front-runner in the NPP primary. As a result, the race is wide open for all three candidates: Alan Kyerematen, Dr. Mahmudu Bawumia, and Kennedy Ohene Agyapong.
Even though the research makes the suggestion, it’s possible that the NPP primary will end up in a run-off, in which case the prediction is that former Trade Minister Alan Kyerematen will emerge victorious with 54% of the vote.
According to the survey, Vice President Bawumia will emerge victorious in the NPP primary, but only by a small margin against Alan, while Ken Agyapong will place a distant third.
As a result of the fact that the primary for the NDC will take place on May 13 of this year, the NPP will select their candidate for president in November 2023.
2024 General Elections (Presidential)
On the topic of the national elections, the former President Mahama is currently ahead of the current candidate for the NPP, Mr. Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen, with 54 percent of the vote to Mr. Kyerematen’s 40 percent, while 6% claim they will vote for someone else.
In the same polls, President Mahama also leads Vice President Dr. Mahmudu Bawumia by a margin of 55% to 38%. In addition, 7% of respondents have indicated that they will vote for someone other than the two candidates, but they have been silent regarding the names of any such individuals.
But there is one contender, Kennedy Ohene Agyapong of the NPP, whose ratings have skyrocketed in a pretty unexpected manner.
Mr. Mahama still leads with 55 percent to Agyapong’s 38 percent. As of the beginning of this year in January, Kennedy Agyepong was trailing Mr. Mahama by a significant margin of 31 to 63 percent.
The 2020 electoral calendar or voters’ registration served as the appropriate frame for the survey that Global Info Analytics conducted, and it was utilised to select a sample of around 5,836 respondents.
According to GIA, thirty percent (30%) of the constituencies in each region “were randomly selected and allocated the regional quota based on the total voters in each of the constituencies.”
This resulted in respondents from a variety of fields being chosen at random from 82 constituencies spread across all 16 regions of Ghana.