Why Mahama Will Win

It's not hard to find signs that President John Mahama is destined for a single term. Unemployment continues to hover around 8 percent (link here), and a July poll from Ghanaian Research Group(CDD) says 70 percent of Ghanaians disapprove of how he has handled the economy.

Mahama isn't the only incumbent to start a re-election campaign with low approval ratings. Even if the economy grows quickly in three months, unemployment will still top 7 percent, and per-capita income growth (a major predictor of presidential elections) is projected to stagnate.

Taken together, this is bad news for the President. Nonetheless, there are reasons for optimism.



For starters, Mahama is far more popular than he should be under the current conditions. The relationship between presidential approval and unemployment is well established, and with the jobless rate at 8.7 percent, Mahama should have approval numbers in the high 30s - but that isn't the case.

According to Goodman AMC LLC, his job approval for the current quarter averages to 49 percent, as does his year-to-date approval rating. Fact is, Mahama maintains high approval ratings among core NDC constituencies and a plurality of Ghanaians still trust him to do right by the country.

Yes, voters hate the sluggish economy, and they are dissatisfied with the country's direction. So far, though, that hasn't translated into personal disdain for the president. Voters are still reluctant to saddle him with responsibility for existing economic conditions.

One other critical point here: President Mahama probably gets graded on a curve by the Ghanaian people when it comes to the economy. They understand that he inherited huge problems, and while they might not be thrilled with the solutions he proposed and the progress he has made, they still give him some benefit of the doubt. In other words, economic metrics may understate his position.

There’s a reason most incumbent presidents win re-election: They enter with built-in advantages, especially if they do not have a primary challenger. Given the state of the economy and Mahama’s mediocre job-approval ratings in mid-2015, the president could easily have drawn an NDC opponent. But he remained popular and was unopposed.

Today, the president’s job approval stands at 49 percent. If this is true on Election Day, he’ll have a good chance of winning.

At this point in the game, even with poor conditions, I'd call the 2016 election for Mahama. I'd do so not because of his personal popularity or his massive campaign operation but because of the New Patriotic Party. The NPP has been captured by its most extreme members, and even the most moderate NPP candidate will be forced to kowtow to the party's far-right wing to win a  nomination. As Mahama struggles with slow economic growth, the NPP's fanaticism could be the thing that saves him. High unemployment aside, if the history of presidential politics shows anything, it's that when you give voters a choice between the incumbent they know and the radicals they don't, the former will win.