27/09/2019
*ASSESSING THE CHANCES OF THE WOULD-BE CANDIDATES OF NPP: FOCUS ON TAMALE NORTH AND SAGNARIGU CONSTITUENCIES*
Competitive elections determine the democratic legitimization of the exercise of public authority, and through this legitimizing criterion, outcomes will be different from the non-competitive selection methods. One of the key features of elections in democratic systems is uncertainty of the electoral outcome.
We are once again, confronted with a dilemma to electing rightful candidates for the upcoming 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections in Ghana as the New Patriotic Party (NPP) goes to the polls on Saturday 28th September, 2019 for orphan constituencies to elect representatives.
The function of delegating political representation allows voters to choose those persons who, in their opinion due to the views and values held, seem to be the best representatives.
Delegation of political representation as a result of the elections and transfer of the decision-making powers rests on the assumption that voters will be able to choose from among themselves those who have the appropriate attributes (knowledge, integrity, loyalty to the principles, ability to cooperate and reach a compromise, etc.), and furthermore that those who are elected will not make decisions based on their own particular interests, but on an agreed decision of all. It is as well interesting to note that, neither of these two conditions is final or automatic, as the democratic freedom of choice allows voters to choose anyone who meets the regulatory criteria, and voters can select their favourites not by assessing their competence, but taking into account other factors. Among them we can indicate such as the represented political option, direct acquaintance, family ties and the previous social activity.
This survey assessed the chances of each candidate to winning the New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentary primaries of orphan constituency’s elections with focus on Tamale North and Sagnarigu Constituencies.
This took into account several factors (in detailed report). A major part of that process was to consider why voters (delegates) vote for one candidate instead of others in the same contest.
The pragmatists believe in an external world independent of the mind as well as that embedded in the mind. This research conducted was within this philosophy and for that matter used the mixed method approach since the investigators drew freely from both quantitative and qualitative assumptions.
The choice of the mixed methods is informed by two reasons. Firstly, the study was meant to achieve a deeper understanding and appreciation of views voters held for each candidate with the view to developing ways to winning the 2020 parliamentary seats of these constituencies. The qualitative approach enabled this agenda.
Secondly, voting is about numbers and for this reason, there was a need to project and predict the outcome of the upcoming primaries using descriptive statistics. The quantitative approach helped in this regard.
Purposive sampling dominated the study. However, it was augmented by a probability sampling technique, specifically sampling random sampling. Purposive sampling was therefore used to select them. Constituency executives, council of elders, and electoral area coordinators were all purposively included in this study. Due to the large numbers and our inability to reach out to all of the polling station executives, simple random was employed to include a majority of them in the study. The total number of delegates in Tamale North and Sagnarigu Constituencies are 363 and 454 respectively. The sample size for this study was however 212 for Tamale North and 284 for Sagnarigu.
The field assistances were confronted with some challenges (detailed in main report) in reaching out to all the delegates. Two data collection methods were used in consonance with the mixed method approach. These were in-depth interviews and questionnaire. Since the research approach is the mixed method approach, both quantitative and qualitative data analyses were employed. SPSS quantitative data analysis tool aided the team to analyse the quantitative data collected, charts like the bar graphs, flow charts, and pie charts were used in this regard.
The constant comparative analysis format was used to analyse the qualitative data.
This strategy involved taking one piece of data either one interview, one statement, or one theme, and comparing it with all others that may be similar or different in order to develop conceptualizations of the possible relations between various pieces of data collected.
Interest in the Tamale North parliamentary primaries has been heightened both at the Regional and National level due to the fact that, one of the candidates is a ‘defectee’ from another party. In other words, he is a new comer into the NPP party according to some delegates. Interestingly, Alhassan Dahamani, the so called ‘defectee candidate’ is winning the contest with a landslide victory.
The research revealed that, out of a total sampled delegate population of 212, 144 delegates are in for Dahamani representing 68%.
Habibu Adam, on the other hand is trailing the contest with only 68 votes representing 32%.
The reasons associated with this outcome, the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate, as well as strategies to either sustain (for Dahamani) or avert (for Habibu) the current situation are discussed in the main report of this research.
The parliamentary primary election in the Sagnarigu Constituency is going to be a two horse race.
This will be between Felica Tettey and Abdul-Wahab Alhassan.
Notwithstanding, Felicia Tettey is winning the NPP Parliamentary primary elections in the Sagnarigu Constituency by great margin.
The research revealed that, out of the total sampled population of 284, 215 delegates are in for Felicia Tettey representing 76%.
Abdul-Wahab Alhassan on the other hand secured 43 votes of the sampled population representing 16%.
Abu Fawzia and Hawa Musah had 13 votes each representing 4% of the total sampled delegates. In the same vein, the reasons for this outcome, strengths and weaknesses of each candidate, as well as strategies of sustaining or to overturning the outcome are in the detail report of this research.
‘All things being equal’ both Tamale North and Sagnarigu constituencies will have peaceful elections as the study revealed.There are no issues of contestations.
It is also important to state emphatically that, this research was not sponsored by any of the aspirants as some individuals or groups might attach some political connotations to the findings.
Detail report is available only on request
