Policies Over Personalities: Penplusbytes’ Report on Policy Preferences and Manifestos

Globally, politicians and scholars have studied voter behaviour, focusing on factors like policies, ideologies, ethnicity, and party affiliation. Meanwhile, in Ghana, social media has become a major influencer of voter behaviour and a go-to platform for political communication. However, it’s also a breeding ground for false and misleading news, making it difficult for voters to base their decisions on manifestos and promises.

Imagine going to the polls with no clear, objective reasons to vote for any presidential aspirant, relying instead on their appearance, personalities, and unverified information, rather than on their promises and plans for Ghana’s development. What would this likely lead to? Continued dissatisfaction and frustration among voters – for the next four years! This is the problem that Penplusbytes’ Voters’ Compass project is trying to solve. The Voters’ Compass project aims to empower Ghanaians with accurate electoral information about the manifestos and promises of all political parties and presidential candidates for the December 2024 national elections.

Penplusbytes, as part of its Voters’ Compass project, recently conducted a baseline survey to assess the key issues that Ghanaian electorates want addressed in manifestos. The survey also explored electorates’ perceived importance of manifestos in making voting decisions. This article highlights some key findings from the survey.  

Key Highlights

The survey report, which can be downloaded here, showed that 63.1% of respondents view manifestos as important: 35.1% consider them as very important, 28% as extremely important, 18.9% as moderately important, and 10.2% as slightly important. Only 7.8% find them not important at all.

Figure 1: Voters’ perceived importance of manifestos in decision-making

The survey also revealed that for most Ghanaians, the economy should be a central focus in manifestos for the 2024 elections. The economy, including jobs, currency exchange rates, inflation, and wages, are identified as the top concern by 90.7% of respondents, aligning with Afrobarometer round 9 survey (2022) findings, which highlighted the economy as a major issue in Ghana. Additionally, 60.7% of respondents considered corruption as a significant problem that needs to be addressed in the manifestos.

Infrastructure development, including roads, markets, and sports complexes, is ranked as most important by 57.3% of respondents. Taxes and government spending, healthcare (including dialysis), and education are also significant, with 57%, 52%, and 52% of respondents considering them as very important. The power crisis is a major concern for 52%, and environmental damage from illegal mining (Galamsey) is noted by 48%. Utilities and energy costs were flagged by 44.3%.

Security services, social service delivery, and digitalization are seen as crucial by 35.9%, 30%, and 25.1% of respondents, respectively. See Figure 2 for a visual ranking of these issues.

Figure 2: Issues political parties should consider in their manifestos

As the country prepares to go to the polls on December 7, electorates are encouraged to focus on manifestos and policies to drive the conversation away from personalities, which has the potential to bring about rumours and disinformation. The general public should be vigilant against unverified information in order make informed voting decisions, thereby curbing mis/disinformation around the Ghana 2024 election. In the meantime, read more of the baseline survey findings here.

About Penplusbytes

Penplusbytes (penplusbytes.org) is a not-for-profit organization driving change through innovations in the following key areas: using new digital technologies to enable good governance and accountability, new media and innovations, climate and well-being, and enhancing oversight for effective utilization of mining, oil and gas revenue and resources.

The Voters’ Compass project is in partnership with VoteSwiper and supported by the German Federal Foreign Office’s funds by ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen), Zivik Funding Programme.

Follow the 2024 Ghanaian Election on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook on @Ghanaelections