Political Marketing Analyst, Professor Kobby Mensah, has expressed shock over the reaction by the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) discrediting the credibility of the latest survey organised by Global InfoAnalytics.
According to the NPP, they do not trust the methodology adopted by the research body, the reason it arrived at the results which puts the National Democratic Congress (NDC) almost 20% ahead of them.
After releasing the first part of the poll last week, Director of Communications of the NPP, Richard Ahiagbah, asked Ghanaians not to put so much premium on it saying that the survey cannot be inclusive to Ghanaians.
“The value that we place on the outcome of this survey cannot be inclusive to the people of this country because the instrument itself can create problems due to people’s understanding of the questions asked.
“So therefore the answers they are giving, as to whether or not they are answering the question about the country moving in the right direction (which is relative when you translate into another language) is the issue. For me, the premium we should put on this should not be too high,” he said on Accra-based JoyNews.
Meanwhile, Prof. Mensah has said the credibility of a poll is hinged on its methodology, something Global InfoAnalytics has justified, having made theirs public, including the questions they asked in their survey.
This, he says, makes it difficult to understand when someone questions the credibility of such a poll when it has met all the requirements of a credible survey.
“A poll’s credibility sits very much on the methodology. Clearly, Global InfoAnalytics have published their methodology, they haven’t hidden it. I have read the report, they have really demonstrated what the methodology is, so if you have issues with the methodology, then somebody would ask you to point out what the gaps or limitations of the methodology [are],” he noted.
Meanwhile, Prof. Kobby Mensah has been saying that there were times when “very suspicious polls” were organised by an international organisation without declaring their methodology, but had “prominent members of the NPP touting that result”, making the attack on Global InfoAnalytic’s survey surprising.
“And you have a poll that have actually published its methodology, and they even have published the questions in the questionnaire and that one it’s very difficult to understand what they mean by the methodology is not rigorous,” he told Alfred Ocansey on Ghana Tonight Monday, April 08, 2024.
The latest national opinion poll organised by the Global InfoAnalytics for the 2024 presidential election placed the National Democratic Congress’s (NDC) John Dramani Mahama ahead of the governing New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.
The survey report “shows the ruling party’s candidate, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia (DMB) trailing the main opposition candidate, John Dramani Mahama (JDM) in the race to lead the country in 2025. The poll shows JDM leads with 54.3%, DMB, 34.9%, Alan Kwadwo Kyeremanten (AKK), 7.5%, Nana Kwame Bediako, 2.3%, others, 1%.”
The poll outcome, –almost 20% difference –compared to results of previous elections and surveys conducted prior to the elections, shows this year’s contest is not as fierce as the previous editions, if the findings of this research is manifested at the end of the polls.
