A poll commissioned by DAILY GUIDE on its website www.dailyguideghana.com, and ran over a period of three weeks since Tuesday, May 31, 2011, puts the two contenders in the upcoming flagbearership primaries of the NDC in a close contest.
The rules of the poll was such that each person was entitled to one vote but people stopped voting for failed aspirant Dr Ekwow Spio-Garbah when he announced his withdrawal, with steady voting for the two main candidates.
At the time of filing this report yesterday, a total of 2,330 people had voted in the poll, with incumbent President John Evans Atta Mills virtually neck-to-neck with former First Lady and wife of the party founder, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, with only a slight margin separating them.
Nana Konadu had taken a commanding lead at the start of the polls, with the ‘slow but sure’ President Mills catching up gradually and overtaking his contender.
http://www.dailyguideghana.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/rawlings_children.jpg
THE AGYEMAN-RAWLINGS CLAN! Amina and Yaa Asantewaa supporting Nana Konadu at her campaign launch
President Mills polled 1,136 votes, representing 49 percent of the total votes cast, whilst Mrs Rawlings secured 1,126 votes, representing 48 percent.
Spio-Garbrah, who dropped his nomination bid along the line, managed to poll only 68 votes, representing 3 percent.
Seventy four percent of those who voted in the polls were resident in Ghana, with 11.8 percent from the Netherlands, 5.5 percent from Germany, 3.4 percent from the United Kingdom, 2.3 percent from the United States while 3 percent were from other countries.
Though it was not certain whether the people who voted in the polls were members of the NDC, especially delegates who are likely to vote in the upcoming primaries slated for July 8-10, 2011 at Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo region, 19 percent of them were between the ages of 18 and 34 years and 81 percent between 35 and 64 years, with 69 percent being males and 31 percent females.
The final outcome of the polls, which would be made public by Friday, July 8, 2011 when the NDC goes to congress to elect a flagbearer, might not have a bearing on the elections in itself, but observers believe the interest in voting itself shows that people, especially Ghanaians, are following the campaign with keen interest.
With both sides- Friends of Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings (FONKAR) and Get Atta Mills Endorsed (GAME) – staking their claim, the contest keeps getting keener by the day.
It promises to get hotter as the two camps intensify their campaigns, with each trying to get its candidate elected to lead the NDC to do battle with its political rival, New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2012 general elections.
Meanwhile, the poll continues on the paper’s website www.dailyguideghana.com and DAILY GUIDE would make the final outcome available to its numerous readers across the length and breadth of the country by Friday, July 8, 2011.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
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