Research findings of a study by iRIS Research Consortium say “Ghana has become relatively more NPP over the course of the past three elections measured by the change in votes between 2008 and 2016.”

According to the report dated Monday 2 November, the incumbent NPP has gained more votes than the opposition NDC with “every election cycle going back to 2008”.

The study authored by Dr. Khalid Musah, Dr. John Osae-Kwapong and Dr. Theo Acheampong indicated that “an average gain of 27.5% for the NPP and 24.9% for the NDC, a net of 2.6%...represents a net gain in votes of 956,861 for the NDC and 1,243,000 for the NPP”.

The authors did not state whether or not rigging of elections, which does affect the total valid votes counted, was factored into their analysis.

The report stated: "The NPP’s vote gain is more concentrated in the Ashanti and Eastern Regions followed by Brong Ahafo, Greater Accra and Northern Regions. The NDC’s vote gain, on the other hand, has been in the Central, Upper East, Upper West and Western Regions.

“This trend in the shift of the electorate toward the NPP accelerated even though it has since slowed down after the end of Rawlings’ second term. Indeed, in the 2000 presidential elections, 17 constituencies that had voted for the NDC in the last two presidential elections ‘permanently’ switched to the NPP.”

The NDC won the 2008 election after a run-off election and won reelection in 2012. The incumbent NPP contested the results at the Supreme Court in a case in which Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the vice-presidential candidate, in the witness box, popularised the expression, “My Lords, you and I were not there”.

The import of Bawumia’s - and by extension, the NPP legal position - was that the “pink sheets” on which the results are declared cannot be trusted; that, especially when figures and words are in conflict, they cannot logically refer to the same amount as is the practice in Financial Accounting rules.

Read below the entire report.