The latest IMANI PULSE report has revealed that the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) flagbearer, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s stance on LGBTQ increased the party’s positive sentiment on social media.
The IMANI’s Public Understanding and Literacy for Sentiment and Election analysis (PULSE) aims to determine the sentiment on social media regarding the major political contenders for the election, as well as influential trends and influencers that are shaping social media discourse.
Episode 6 was between March 26 and April 29.
Although PULSE primarily studies the two leading parties, NPP and NDC, the sixth episode of the series added the sentiments and influence of the other parties, the PNC, CPP, ACP and PPP, as well as independent candidates like the Butterfly Movement, the New Force and other emerging forces in the political landscape.
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“The sentiments of NDC rose by about 2 percentage points during the period to 11.38%. This means that sentiments have improved from the last period. The NPP’s positive sentiments however improved from 10.71% to around 15.76%. This trend follows the previous month’s trend of NPP having more positive sentiment information on social media.”
“Dr Bawumia’s public stance on LGBTQ+ issues boosted and resonated his positive sentiments as Ghana is overall a very conservative country, and this led to a lot of favourable mentions and comments about Candidate Bawumia,” excerpts of the report read.
Government initiatives like the launch of One Student, One Tablet also triggered some positive mentions for the NPP, according to the report.
“Additionally, his visit within the same period to the Vatican led to more mentions as well as positive sentiments over the period, with less negative sentiment. Also, to be noted is his renovation of the Jakpa palace which also led to many positive sentiments and less negative sentiments,” it added.
Also, the Ejisu primaries for the vacant Ejisu seat “dominated mentions for NPP as several commentators on social media were speculating.”
“This led to most of the high positive sentiments with regards to NPP on social media,” it said.
Furthermore, as regards negative sentiments, the report noted that “negative sentiment over the period decreased for both party candidates.”
“People that spoke of NPP negatively fell from about 17% to around 12%, showing that the trend where NPP was having less negative sentiments continued within the time period. NDC also had their sentiments fall albeit by almost the same margin as the NPP. This led them to an around 15% negative sentiment rate.”
