The Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) says if elections were to be conducted in March this year, there would have been a run-off. The New Patriotic Party would have received the largest share of votes. The results of the 2008 Afro Barometer Survey by the CDD show that the NPP recorded 46 per cent of votes cast followed by the NDC with 23 per cent. The Convention People’s Party (CPP) had three per cent and Dr. Edward Mahama’s People’s National Convention (PNC), obtained one per cent of the votes. The Afro-Barometer is an independent non-partisan research instrument that measures social, political and economic atmosphere in African countries. Explaining the results, the Executive Secretary of CDD-Ghana, Prof. Gyimah Boadi said 27 per cent of voters were undecided. He said the survey also showed that the number of people who declared their affiliation to the NPP had fallen, declining from 43 to 36 per cent. Prof. Boadi cautioned that the results must be analysed taking into consideration a number of caveats. He said a significant proportion of the 27 per cent voters for example who refused to disclose their voting intentions were most likely to vote for an opposition party. On the management of the economy, the survey showed that 69 per cent of voters praise the government for managing the economy well. The survey also looked at the perception about corruption and found that 86 per cent of people thought the police was the most corrupt institution. That was followed by tax officers whom 79 per cent of people thought were corrupt. Corruption at the presidency, Prof. Boadi observed had risen between 2005 and 2008 by 14 points. Speaking to Joy News, on the survey results, a research fellow at the CDD, Mr. Joseph Asunkan said the fall in the popularity of the NPP was attributable to “fear of declining living standard in the future”. Another reason he said was that many perceived government’s fighting of crime and corruption as poor. Mr. Asunkan said about 54 per cent of people do not also trust the president adding that obviously affects the popularity of the NPP. He said the survey was conducted nationwide involving a representative sample of adult Ghanaians selected at random. The research fellow explained that the results featured only three political parties because any party that scored less that point five per cent of votes was deemed to have had an insignificant score which was ignored. Story by Malik Abass Daabu