Episode 7 of IMANI's Sentiment Report

The period under observation for this edition of the report is from the 21st of April to the 17th of May 2024.

The positive sentiments of NDC rose by about 3 percentage points during the period to 14.56% from a previous level of 11.38%. This means that sentiments have improved since the last period. The NPP’s positive sentiments, however, fell marginally from 15.76% to 15.17%. While the NPP still leads in positive sentiment on social media, this lead has been closed up considerably by the NDC over the period under review.

Purely negative sentiment over the period did not change significantly for both party candidates. Variations did not go beyond 1% either way. People who spoke of NPP negatively fell marginally to 12.5% from 12.16%. NDC’s negative sentiments increased from around 15% to 16.36%.

NPP still leads in mentions on social media. Unlike in the last period, the NPP has opened a big gap in mentions over the last period. The period under review had the NPP having around 58% of total mentions, while the NDC had 41% of mentions.

What is intriguing is that the NDC has managed to get a higher social media reach for its posts while still having fewer mentions and less positive sentiment, which means that there is more engagement organically by social media handles that speak positively about the NDC. There, the NDC had a reach of 2 million more than the NPP, despite having 16% fewer mentions under review. The NPP enjoys the privilege of the party in power and the increased activity of candidate Bawumia on his tours across sections of Ghana that will dominate the landscape. NPP has always had the momentum naturally in mentions on social media.

However, looking at the ratio of mentions to reach and the average revenue equivalent, it shows that the NDC, although it puts out less content, gets more value for its mentions in terms of audience and spread of its content. This shows an advantage of traction.

The highest number of spikes of negative sentiment against John Mahama and the NDC came from the public address by President Nana Akufo-Addo attacking Candidate John Mahama over the preservation of his legacy. This peaked between the 8th and the 9th of May, when the debates were highest and there was a spike in mentions of both. However, Candidate Bawumia had more positives and fewer negatives than Candidate Mahama.

Candidate Bawumia had more negative mentions when it came to the issue of the nurses' allowance and the inability of the government to pay the nurses. Other issues that affected Candidate Bawumia were the taxation of churches and how he joked that the government should rather pay churches.

Candidate Mahama also gained some comments and mentions in relation to his address on how AI will boost mining. These created talking points in the media.

In the run-up to the 2024 general elections, IMANI presents PULSE, a fortnightly curated social media-based sentiment analysis report designed to follow the “pulse” of Ghanaians. The IMANI 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. The analyses are referenced from the following platforms: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Web, TikTok, Podcasts, and newsfeeds.