Ejisu by-election: NPP candidate likely to win - Opinion poll indicates

The parliamentary candidate of the New Patriotic Party in the Ejisu Constituency, Kwabena Boateng, has been tipped to win the Tuesday, April 30 by-election with 50.9 per cent, an opinion poll conducted by the Global InfoAnalytics released yesterday has suggested.

The poll also indicated 47.5 per cent of voters would vote for the Mr Kwabena Owusu Aduomi, an independent candidate, with 1.7 per cent remaining undecided. Zero point two per cent said they would vote for Ms Esther Osei, the Convention People’s Party (CPP) candidate, with the rest of the candidates having zero per centage.

The poll results further indicated that 92 per cent of National Democratic Congress (NDC) supporters in the Ejisu Constituency will vote Mr Aduomi. The Ejisu Constituency which is one of the 47 constituencies in the Ashanti Region has long remained an NPP safe seat since 2012. However, the poll suggested that 66 per cent of floating voters in the constituency were likely to favour Mr Aduomi in the election while only 30 per cent are likely to vote for Mr Boateng.

The Ejisu seat became vacant following the death of the NPP MP of the area, John Kumah, on March 7, this year. The race to replace him in Parliament has since been heated with six candidates vying for it, three of them being independent candidates. The NDC did not file a candidate for the by-election.

Candidates

The other Independent candidates are Gabriel Agyemang Joseph and Attakorah Joseph while Esther Osei represents the Convention People’s Party (CPP) and Beatrice Boakye for Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG).

Methodology  

A sample size of 1,351 were interviewed which was carried out from April 22 to 25, with the voters selected randomly from 19 out of the 28 electoral areas of the constituency made up of 53 per cent males and 47 per cent females, ranging between the ages of 18 and 64 upwards with a confidence level of 99 per cent and a margin of error of 3.42 per cent.

The Electoral Commission’s 2020 voters register was used as a sample frame. 

Influence

The poll results also indicated that 63 per cent of the respondents said they would be influenced by the projects the government was undertaking to vote in the by-election while 32 per cent said no and five per cent, neutral.

Asked if a bribe could influence their votes, 33 per cent said they would accept and vote for the candidate who offered the bribe while 32 per cent said they would accept the bribe but vote against the candidate who offered it.

 On the other hand 21 per cent of the respondents said they would reject bribes and vote against candidates that offered it while 13 per cent said they would reject the bribe and still vote for the candidate that offered it.