December Referendum: Over 50 Percent Ghanaians Unaware – Afrobarometer

Over fifty percent of Ghanaians are yet to decide whether or not local government elections in the country should remain non-partisan.

Aside this, the same number of Ghanaians say they are not aware of the impending December referendum.

According to the latest Afrobarometer Survey Round 8 report released by the Centre for Democratic Governance in Accra yesterday though the majority of those interviewed in the survey say they will vote, as much as 51% say they are not aware of the upcoming referendum.

It said men, the highly educated and elderly citizens are more aware of the referendum than women, citizens with less schooling and young adults.

The impending referendum to be held on December 17, 2019, is an exercise that the nation is going through to answer the “Yes” or “No” question as to whether the existing law should be changed to enable MMDCEs to be elected on partisan lines or not.

But respondents of the survey said although, a slim majority of Ghanaians find the preparations of the Electoral Commission to be satisfactory, very few insisted there has been a lot of education about the voting exercise.

Beyond the referendum, Ghanaians views were also collated on democracy and elections.

On democracy, many of the respondents according to the report refer a democratic leader to an autocratic one and as well trust the Electoral Commission to be fair to all candidates during elections.

66% of Ghanaians are “fairly satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the way democracy works in the country, representing a 14- percentage-point decline compared to 2017.

Likewise, the proportion of citizens who describe the country as a “full democracy” or “a democracy with minor problems” decreased by 12 percentage points since 2017 with a majority 57% saying competition among parties often or always leads to violent conflict.

Only about one in five according to the Survey said the president often or always ignores the court or Parliament with large majorities saying members of Parliament and local government councillors “never” or “only sometimes” listen to what ordinary people have to say.

On the performance of the EC, 55% of Ghanaians said the EC is fair to all political parties, while 61% said the limited voter-registration exercise was “fairly well” or “very well” organized by the Electoral Commission.

77% said it is not likely that powerful people can find out who one voted for regarding the 2016 elections, while eight in ten Ghanaians said the results announced by the EC accurately reflected the actual results as counted.

Afrobarometer is non-partisan, pan-African research institution conducting public attitude surveys on democracy, governance, the economy and society in over thirty countries repeated on a regular cycle.