A statistics-based research by a senior lecturer at the University of Ghana has predicted a win for the New Patriotic Party, NPP, after a runoff in this year’s presidential election.
Dr Ezekiel Nii Noye Nortey however indicated that none of the two main parties will win the first run in this year’s presidential election.
He told TV3 in an interview that the NPP will win with 51.7 % while the governing National Democratic Congress trailing with 48.3% after a re-run.
His forecast is based on a model called Markov chain: a random process that undergoes transitions from one state to another on a state space.
His research shows that NDC is popular in Greater Accra, Volta, Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions whereas the NPP’s popularity is in Eastern and Ashanti regions.
He predicted that in the main presidential election, the NDC will secure 48.7% while the NPP will obtain 47.80%.
Other political parties, he claimed, will get 1.8% whilst1.6% votes will be rejected.
He used results from 1992 to 2012 presidential elections to predict the 2016 general elections.
Dr Nii Noye Nortey explained that the Markov chain has been used to predict elections in United States and Britain.
He said the model purely makes use of data in the previous elections in order to predict the one ahead.
He however said the research did not factor the current socio-economic environment.
The results can change depending on the prevailing socio-economic factors between now and November, he added cautiously.
The margin of error is 2. 4%.
Source: tv3network.com | Ghana