An NPP Member of Parliament for Sissala East, Amidu Issahaku Chinnia, has said he sees nothing wrong with a survey that predicts doom for a politician or a political party.
Rather than totally rejecting such polls, the MP says it is better to rather compare such reports with one’s own research and strike the balance and take lessons from them.
Noting that not all surveys have proven accurate, he admitted to the fact that there are lessons one can deduce from such polls to guide their contests.
The man who doubles as a Deputy Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources was commenting on the NPP’s rejection of the Global InfoAnalytics survey that puts the NDC’s John Dramani Mahama ahead of its candidate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.
The survey had said “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%.”
But the Director of Communications for the NPP, Richard Ahiagbah, had rejected the report, indicating that “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.”
Meanwhile, the NPP MP says “these kinds of surveys are meant to guide politicians in general. For me there is no wrong if anybody does a survey in my constituency and predicts that I am likely to lose the next election. I don’t have a problem with that because I know my strength I know my weaknesses and any survey that brings additional information pointing to other variables will only urge me to do more, try to correct the wrongs to make sure that I win the election. And so for me personally I don’t have any qualms with the outcomes of his research.”
“As a party we have also been doing our research and our own checks. We know the situation on the grounds. We only need to add the shortfalls that we identify from his research and add more value to how we can retain power in 2024,” he counseled.
