Polls, Pundits and Religious Leaders: The Politics of Predicting Election Outcomes in Ghana’s Fourth Republic

Abstract

Understanding the thinking of the average person on the street is critical to election strategy and victory. Scientific polling, elite political pundits and, recently in developing democracies such as Ghana, the clergy have shaped public opinion and influenced political strategy through their prediction of election outcomes. In developed democracies, effective institutions and time-tested political culture have influenced their adoption of more scientific approaches to measuring what the average person thinks. Experiences in predicting election outcomes in developing democracies are quite different and more dangerous. Election prediction is different in developing democracies because of the lack of reliable research data and dangerous in disregarding existing research evidence or manipulating same for political gain. Using largely the qualitative method, this chapter finds that Ghanaians have demonstrated increasing awareness, knowledge and faith in scientific election polls and polling agencies and agrees that polling has an impact on voter behaviour and could trigger a bandwagon effect in an election. The chapter also finds that election polls could positively affect Ghana’s democracy and encourage more scientific polls often.