The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is predicting that the incumbent New Patriotic Party (NPP) will beat the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) at the December 2020 polls in a “closely contested” election.
In the latest report released on December 30, 2019, the EIU claims that it will be difficult for the opposition NDC with ex-President John Dramani Mahama as flagbearer to redeem its image to Ghanaians as a better alternative to the economic management of the NPP.
“The campaign for the 2016 election was dominated by public concerns over a faltering economy, which many Ghanaians still associate with Mr. Mahama. As a result, The Economist Intelligence Unit believes that it will be difficult for the NDC under Mr. Mahama to portray itself as the better custodian of Ghana’s economy, especially as the country’s growth outlook is fairly strong. We, therefore, expect Mr. Akufo-Addo and the NPP to secure re-election in 2020,”
However, the EIU quickly warned that if the NDC can present a coherent opposition and hold the NPP to account on unfulfilled campaign promises “particularly on infrastructure development, as well as private sector development such as job creation and industrialization, where progress has been generally slow and success patchy—the election could be closely contested.”
The NDC in 2020 would be coming off one of its biggest defeats to the NPP-in the 2016 elections, where the Nana Akufo-Addo-led NPP beat the NDC by a shocking one million votes.
The NPP garnered 5,716,026 million votes, representing 53.85%, while the incumbent Mahama-led NDC polled 4,713,277 million votes representing 44.40%, in NDC’s worst defeat as an incumbent party.
The EIU has in the past made some pretty accurate predictions and the latest is but one of a string of recent predictions.
However, the close call of the election makes it unpredictable and shows that the NPP may indeed have lost significant favour among Ghanaians.
Run up to the 2016, elections, the NPP was tipped to exceed the conventional eight-year term of most incumbent parties.
But with the growing corruption perception around the NPP, critics think that even though the NPP could win the 2020 elections, the 2024 elections would see the party ousted.
Meanwhile, the NDC is keeping its hopes high, saying it believes that contrary to the EIU report, it will win the elections, a Deputy General Secretary of the NDC, Peter Otokunor told Accra-based Citinews that 2020 would see a change in government.
“There will be an obvious change in
government. The NDC will be winning the December 7 polls and President Mahama
will become the President again. While we look at 2020 with hope, we are not
oblivious of the fact that 2019 was that of misery and hardship. People had really
gone through tough times,” Otukunor countered.