The recent reshuffle by President Akufo-Addo did not have enough weight to sway the level of positive sentiments surrounding the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).

This is according to data from IMANI Africa's Public Understanding and Literacy for Sentiment and Election (PULSE).

In the report sighted by JoyNews, IMANI Africa said the reshuffle rather triggered more negative sentiments towards the NPP.

IMANI Africa explained that the period under observation for the report was 11^th of February to the 26^th of February 2024.

Read also: Mahama leads Bawumia in social media sentiments – IMANI Africa report

Giving more details, the report said although purely negative sentiment over the period increased for both party candidates (that is 2024 NDC flagbearer, John Dramani Mahama and 2024 NPP flagbearer, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia), the people that spoke of NPP negatively however had a higher percentage increase from around 21% to just over 28%.

This represents a 7% increase in negative sentiment as against NDC’s approximately 4% increment in negative sentiment for the period under review. 

"The inference here is that generally more people feel negative about both parties, with NPP however having more mentions and more growing negative sentiment", it added.

Again, the Periodic Social Media Sentiment Analysis Report published in March said NPP still leads in mentions on social media.

It explained that "while there was the ministerial reshuffle during the period, the gap in mentions and social reach was nevertheless still dominant. The NPP is probably being mentioned more as the ruling party with more social media commentators putting their policies forward, as well as the current messages of their presidential candidate under the spotlight, more than they are doing with the candidate of the NDC."

The data also showed that former President John Dramani Mahama witnessed a reduction in negative sentiments over the period by about 8.27%.

Candidate John Mahama’s reach on non-social media web sources also reduced by 6.78% which is a significant drop.

Background

On Wednesday, February 14, President Akufo-Addo announced a ministerial reshuffle in his government. This is the first major overhaul since assuming office in January 2017.

The president relieved the Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta of his duties and kicked out Roads Minister Kwame Amoako-Atta and Health Minister, Kwaku Agyemang Manu.

Apart from removing some ministers from their posts, President Akufo-Addo reassigned others including deputy ministers and appointed new personalities to some ministries.