Facts about Ghana’s Parliamentary Candidates and Regions Political Parties are hoping to win seats.
So Ghana will be going to the polls on 7th December, 2016. That’s like so close.
There has been a lot said about the Presidential Candidates running but very little about the Parliamentary Candidates who will represent Ghanaians in Parliament.
I did some analysis on the Profile of the Parliamentary Candidates and there are some very interesting things I’ll like to share.
Basic Facts
The average age of the Parliamentary Candidates contesting in this years Elections is 44 years.
Total number of Parliamentary Candidates : 1144
10 Political Parties and 74 Independent Candidates are contesting in this years Parliamentary Elections: Great Consolidated Popular Party(GCPP), Conventions Peoples Party(CPP), National Democratic Congress(NDC), New Patriotic Party(NPP), Democratic People’s Party (DPP), United Progressive Party (UPP), United Front Party(UFP), Progressive Peoples Party (PPP), Peoples National Convention (PNC), National Democratic Party (NDP) and All People’s Congress(APC).
Age
The youngest Parliamentary Candidates contesting are 22 years of age. (Ayaaba Samson Asaman, CPP in the Tempane Constituency, Upper East Region and Modemei Peter also CPP, in the Atebubu/Amantin Constituency, Brong Ahafo Region).
Interestingly, the oldest Parliamentary Candidate is also from the Conventions Peoples Party(CPP) George Kofi Kotoku at the age of 76, contesting for the Afadjato South seat in the Volta Region.
The youngest constituency is the Afigya Sekyere East Constituency in the Ashanti Region with an average age of 29 years. This seat is being contested only by the NDCs Awudu Salim and the NPPs Nkansah-Boadu Mavis.
Of the Top 10 youngest constituencies, 6 of them are in the Ashanti Region, 1 in the Western Region, 1 in the Northern Region, another in the Volta Region and the last one in the Brong Ahafo Region.
It perhaps isn’t surprising that, regionally the Ashanti Region with Brong Ahafo and Northern Region are the youngest, on average at 42 years.
Central and Volta Region are the oldest regions at 46 years. This means that, taking the ages of all the Parliamentary Candidates in the Central Region, the average age is 46 years.
The oldest constituency? Navrongo Central, Upper East Region.
Female Parliamentary Candidates
Historically, 10% of Parliamentary Candidates voted into Parliament in each election have been women. That’s quite low considering the fact that women form the majority in Ghana.
There are 137 Female Parliamentary candidates contesting this year. Since 2 or 3 female candidates will contest against each other in 24 constituencies in all, there can only be 109 female winners. Thats 40% Female representation in Parliament if all the seats with at least a female candidate contesting is won by a female.
In the 2012 Elections, 30 Females won their seats out of 133 which contested. That’s 11% of Parliament.
What then is the Female representation in each contesting Political Party?
18% of NDPs Parliamentary candidates are Female, the highest percentage of females in a Party. That is 6 of NDPs 33 Parliamentary candidates.
This is a party whose Presidential Candidate, Konadu Agyemang Rawlings is the 1st Female to run for Presidency in Ghana’s 4th Republic.
For the other parties:
NDC = 15%
PNC = 14%
CPP = 13%
NPP = 11%
PPP = 11%
GCPP has as low as 7% of its Candidates being Female.
Parliamentary Candidates in Each Party
There has been quite a drop in the total number of Parliamentary Candidates contesting, from 1331, the highest ever, in 2012 to 1144 for the 2016 Elections.
So how does that drop reflect among the parties?
PPP went from 211 Candidates in 2012 to 161 currently. That’s a 23% drop. Cash strapped? This could be due to the sharp increase in filing fees, by the Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC). PPP certainly weren’t happy about it.
To put it into perspective, if PPP were to pay the total amount they paid in 2012 (GHC 211,000) as filing fees for their 2016 Candidates, they would be able to pay for only 21 of them.
NDP went from 155 in 2012 to 33 in 2016.
In actual fact, all non NDC or NPP parties saw a fall in Parliamentary Candidate numbers except CPP and GCPP.
PNC went from 94 to 63. APC breaking away from the party probably had a hand in that drop.
UFP went from 7 to 6.
DPP went from 16 to only 1. That’s Evans Nii Djabum Mensah who is contesting for the Bortianor-Ngleshie Amanfro seat, Greater Accra Region.
UPP has only 1 candidate aswell. That’s Diamond Nannah Appiah, Trobu Constituency, Greater Accra Region.
CPPs case is different. Even with an increase in filing fees, they increased their candidates from 145 in the 2012 Elections to 219 in 2016. They basically have switched places with PPP.
GCPP also increased from 2 in 2012 to 15 in 2016.
Party Distribution Across Regions
With the increase in filing fees and the reduction in Candidates, it is expected that these Political Parties will be even more strategic with exactly where they will put their Parliamentary Candidates to increase their chance of winning the seat. Lets see how some decided to do that.
GCPP has 53% of its Candidates in the Ashanti Region which is 36% more than the 17% of a parties candidates expected in the region, and 20% of them in the Upper West Region, 16% more than expected. They have no Candidate in 5 regions in all. That is Central, Eastern, Northern, Volta and Upper East Region. Taking Northern Region for example, since they have no Candidate there and the expected party candidate percentage in that region is 11%, they have a negative 11% score there.
GCPP basically put all its egg in one basket, the Ashanti Region.
CPPs Parliamentary Candidates are spread across the Regions more evenly than all the other non-NDC/NPP parties. CPP won its 1st seat in the current Parliament in the Northern region so you’d have thought they fancy their chances there but they did not over represent in the region. Perhaps, having 219 candidates affords them the luxury. Their representation in Western and Upper West Region is exactly as expected.
NDP has 30% of its Candidates in Volta region. No surprise since NDP is a breakaway from the NDC. This could cause problems for the governing NDCs parliamentary candidates in their stronghold due to the relative proximity of the parties on the ballot paper, identical initials and party colours. NDP has no Candidates in the Northern Region and a sizable lower than expected candidates in the Ashanti Region.
PPPs relative absence in the Eastern region stands out. Aside that, they’re the closest to CPP in terms of closeness to expectations. PPP looks to be targeting the swing regions: Central, Western, Brong Ahafo and Greater Accra.
APC has majority of its Candidates in the North of Ghana that is Upper East (where the parties founder was born), Upper West and the Northern region. APC probably feel they have a chance there. Down south, Greater Accra has a major percent of the parties Candidates. Their total absence in Central and near absence in the Eastern region is conspicuous but their representation percentage in the Volta Region is exactly as expected.
PNC interestingly, has a very similar pattern to APC. Like APC, PNC has more than expected candidates in Upper East, Upper West and Northern Region but unlike APC, PNC has a huge portion of them in the Ashanti region. Just like APC, though, they both have pretty much abandoned the Eastern region.
Educational Institution
Fun Fact: At least 85 of the Parliamentary Candidates are University of Cape Coast(UCC) Alumni. Veritas Nubis Lumen!
The Upper West is one region popular among most of the parties analysed. The Ashanti Region is certainly being targeted by PNC and GCPP. NDP is eyeing Volta Region, and APC favoring itself in the North of Ghana.
It will be interesting to see how the Parliamentary elections play out and if the several other parties can win a seat or two with their strategies.
Anything else you’d like to know about the Parliamentary Candidates? Please respond below or tweet at me @DaveQuartey.
All data and code used can be found here.
