IMANI’s Public Understanding and Literacy for Sentiment and Election analysis (PULSE) has revealed that the public’s negative sentiment toward the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has been hit marginally as against the main opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
PULSE is to determine the sentiment on social media regarding the major political contenders for this year’s elections. It also analyses influential trends and influencers that are shaping social media discourse.
The analyses are referenced from Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, Web, TikTok, Podcasts and Newsfeeds. The recent analyses were between February 13 and February 26.
“Positive public opinion and sentiment still remains at 10% with a dead tie proportionally between NPP and NDC mentions.
“Public negative sentiment still increases for both, with NPP having an almost 8% jump in negative sentiment”, the report stated.
The report went on to state that although negative sentiments were expressed towards the two leading candidates, those who spoke negatively about the NPP were higher compared to the NDC.
“Purely negative sentiment over the period increased for both party candidates. People that spoke negatively of NPP, however, had a higher percentage increase from around 21% to just over 28%, representing a 7% increase in negative sentiment against NDC’s approximately 4% increment in negative sentiment for the period under review.
“The inference here is that generally more people feel negative about both parties, with the NPP, however, having more mentions and more growing negative sentiment”, it added.
Furthermore, the report emphasised that the ministerial reshuffle by President Akufo-Addo did not in any way influence positive sentiments for the NPP but rather attracted negative sentiments towards the party.
“It seems to be that even though there was a ministerial reshuffle, it did not have or carry enough weight to change the level of positivity of the NPP but rather triggered negative sentiments overall.”
Mentions and reach
The report further revealed that the NPP still leads in mentions on social media. While there was a ministerial reshuffle during the period, the gap in mentions and social reach was nevertheless still dominant.
“The NPP is probably being mentioned more as the ruling party, with more social media commentators putting their policies, as well as the current messaging of their presidential candidate under the spotlight, more than they are doing with the candidate of the NDC”, it added.
However, the increase in the social media reach of the NPP’s Dr Bawumia resulted in the rise of negative sentiments. While Candidate Mahama’s reach on non-social media web sources decreased by 6.78%, which is a significant drop, his negative sentiments also reduced significantly.