The dynamics of Ghana’s 2020 general elections left several stakeholders ‘head scratching’ from the beginning the results started trickling in from all the various 33000 polling stations nationwide.
Although several pre-election polls predicted a one-time win for the incumbent with the percentage of victory ranging from 51% to as high as 53%. The incumbent even had high hopes; a projected first round victory of over 1.5 million votes. That was how confident they were prior to the elections. Aside the manifestos that symbolised the contesting parties blueprint for governance into the future and comparative analysis of the previous government and the incumbent in areas of policy execution, infrastructural development, and the fight against corruption. The debate surge on and on. Most of these predictions or polls base factor in the determination of who wins the ultimate was vastly dependent on the performance of the winning party in the three SWING regions namely the Central Region, Greater Accra and the Western Region aside the debate on policy execution, the fight against corruption among others.
Such bold prediction was as a matter of fact in order since during this fourth republic in the history of Ghana’s election, any party that had taken the Greater Accra Region had always gone ahead to win the election. So clearly a prediction based on such a clear trend couldn’t have been wrong. Electoral researchers into Ghana’s election have always pronounced that even if a party is able to consolidate massively the majority of votes in its strong hold, it can never win an election without winning these swing regions. However, the contrary was actually the determining factor of the 2020 general elections. The Ashanti Region which happens to be the heart beat of the incumbent was this time the determinant of who wins the election. Quiet Strangely to this fact, was that, the Ashanti Region also gave the opposition party an unprecedented total number of votes that was even bigger than the total number of votes from the two regions considered as the strong hold of the opposition party, yet the difference thereafter was too huge to cancel out the remaining nine regions won by the opposition party.
What at all then is with this region that even though considered as the stronghold of one party, yet can give the opposition party so much votes more than its stronghold and consequently decide who wins the election?
Is this region becoming the new king makers of Ghana’s elections?
Or is the theory of the Swing regions been the king makers of Ghana’s election had always been a myth?
To delve into this, the analysis below could help unravel these questions particularly in determining the factor(s) that won the general election for the incumbent party when all other factors remained constant.
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) as a matter of fact won the majority of the regions in the 2020 elections with Nine(9) regions and the incumbent New Patriotic Party (NPP) taking home the remaining seven(7) out of the total sixteen regions that was up for grabs in the elections. Clearly the NDC was also wining majority of the parliamentary seats even in most of the regions the NPP won in the presidential race with the exception of the Ashanti Region and Eastern Region. This pointed to the fact that the NDC nationwide was very strong even in the NPP’s stronghold region.
That notwithstanding, the differences in the total votes won by the NDC as against the incumbent NPP in these nine regions gave them a total votes of One Million and thirty three thousand and fifty (1,033,050)- Figures below for the actual:
1. Bono East – 60,3532. Greater Accra – 73,3103. Northern Region – 66,5874. Oti region – 77,1565. Savanna – 63,6396. Upper West – 117,7427. Upper East – 165,1628. Volta – 506,0279. Western North – 21,316
Total = 1,033,550
It is important to note that this total is less than the the difference in votes between the NDC and the NPP in the Ashanti Region alone. Which is One Million, One Hundred and Forty Two Thousand, Six Hundred and Seventy Five (1,142,675) votes. Figures Below for the actuals:
1,795,824 – 653,149 = 1,142,675
This is the staggering reality of how powerful the Ashanti Region is in determining who wins an election in Ghana particularly in relations to the numbers for the 2020 elections.
The most astonishing fact to this is that, the NPP still had a total votes of One hundred and Nine thousand, One hundred and Twenty Five (109,125) votes in excess after cancelling out the votes difference in the nine regions NDC won including the swing regions of the Greater Accra. Actuals below:
1,142,675 – 1,033,550 =109,125
This statistically shows that the votes differentials between the NPP and NDC alone was enough to have decided the victory for the incumbent NPP had they(NPP&NDC) all had the same number of votes even in the other seven(7) regions won by the incumbent. Clearly the determining factor of the winner in Ghana’s elections based on this statistics is not necessarily based on the So called Swing Regions but the margin of votes between the NPP and the NDC in the Ashanti Region.This means that the higher the margin of votes differentials in favour of a particular party in the Ashanti region the higher its chances of winning the elections in Ghana and vice versa.
The challenge for these parties after this election and heading into 2024 particularly the NDC, is how how to reduce this gap by at least 35% to stand a chance of overtaking the NPP come 2024. On the other hand if the NPP is to fail Ashanti region with respect to developments and they decide not to vote thereby reducing the voter turnout in nominal terms significantly, then that is the winning card for the NDC come 2024. Clearly the Ashanti Region with its numbers has grown to become the King Makers Ghana’s Elections. Whoever pays particular attention to this region certainly would be on its way to the Jubilee House of the Republic of Ghana 🇬🇭.
Long Live Ghana and May we continue to blaze the trail as the beacon of democracy in Africa and the world at large.
As the EU observers rightly put it, Venezuela was having their election the same period Ghana was having its election and was even closer to Europe than Ghana but they choose to come to Ghana because of what Ghana has achieved over the years in our democratic journey.
Pat the shoulder of your Ghanaian brother or sister wherever you might be around the world and be proud to be a Ghanaian because once again we’ve shown the world we can do it than the Western World.
Merry Christmas to us all. May the good God usher us safely to the new year devoid of any unpleasant eventualities.
The Writer Emmanuel Opoku Antwi(Value Chain Analysts and a Social Commentator)
