The founder and leader of the All People’s Congress (APC), Dr. Hassan Ayariga, has stated that the sample of 6,123 out of about 18 million Ghanaian voters used by Global InfoAnalytics favoured the two leading political parties, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
In the recent polls, the flagbearer of the opposition NDC, John Dramani Mahama, leads Vice President Dr. Bawumia by nearly a 20 percent margin.
Reacting to the poll results on TV3 New Day on Tuesday, April 9, the flagbearer of APC underscored that the poll “is too early” to confirm the choice of candidate for the Ghanaian voters.
“I realised that they sampled 6,123 voters, we have over 28 million Ghanaian people with about 18 million voters register and then you go and sampled less than thousand, and then you want to use that and say these are the results of what is going to happen.
“Clearly, it is going to favour certain political leaders and then work against certain political leaders,” he said.
He also raised concerns about the fact the poll adopted higher percentages of respondents in the strongholds of the NPP and NDC compared to other parties.
“If you move to the strongholds of the NPP and you do over 18% of the people you are asking of this poll definitely you’re going to get a lot of votes from that place. You go to the strongholds of the NDC and you do over 20% of the voters you’re definitely going to get results coming from those places to favour the NDC.”
He added that “if you go to Hassan Ayariga’s stronghold, which is the Upper East, and you do two percent of that or less than one percent of that result, you’re definitely not going to get enough of the people to favour Hassan Ayariga.”
However, Global InfoAnalytics, in its latest polls, used four percent of respondents in the Upper East.
Dr. Ayariga maintained that over 18 percent of respondents recorded for the two leading parties, the NPP and the NDC, leave the polls favouring the leaders of the parties.
The leader of the APC further noted that majority of the political parties in this year’s elections have yet to select running mates, adding that, the “campaign is yet to begin” and that such polls can affect the mindset of party supporters.
“For me, these samples go in favour of certain political parties against [other parties] and it is an issue of mindset,” said Dr. Ayariga, emphasizing that party supports will be discouraged by the news of their political party securing lower percentages.
“If I see that my party APC is there and then I don’t see a proper percentage, you’re discouraging a lot of particular people who will support a certain political party,” he stated.
