Political Marketing: Ghana Voters’ Behaviour, Trust, Loyalty and Intention to Vote

By Zakari Bukari, Abu Bakar A Hamid and Hishamuddin MD SOM

Political marketing is part and parcel of political life. Politicians, government and council departments have incorporate marketing in their pursuit of political goals. They are aware when deciding on policies and service deliverances; understand people they serve and seek votes from them and thus create new segments to target and creation of the political brand to develop an attractive vision. The objectives of this study are to examine voters` behaviour, the role of loyalty, trust, and voting intention in selecting political leaders in Ghana. Data gathered from 520 eligible voters who have voted at least two times. Structural Equation Modeling Smart PLS was employed generate the findings. The outcome revealed that, candidate personality, epistemic value, contingency situation and political issues have a positive and significant influence on voting intention. However the social imagery had no effect on voting intention from the voters` perspectives. Voters` loyalty and trust moderates voting intention on the aggregate level. This finding suggested that political issues engagement with voter audience need to be revisited through civic education. Given the importance that democratic societies placed on citizens’ participation in an electoral process. Incorporating their views, opinions and feelings on trust and loyalty to a party on their voting intention will offers an empirical dimension to the evaluation of voters` behaviour and also help the leadership of the various political parties in Ghana in their quest to develop appropriate strategies with the so aim of winning election. As marketers do to win their customers against their competitors.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Sep 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781543760903

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Copyright © 2020 by ZAKARI BUKARI, ABU BAKAR A HAMID, HISHAMUDDIN MD SOM.

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Contents

Acknowledgement

Dedication

About The Authors

Chapter 1: Political Landscape And Challenges

Chapter 2: Documentary Research

Chapter 3: Research Protocol

Chapter 4: Data Evaluation

Chapter 5: Discource And Discovery

References

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank Almighty Allah for his guidance and protection throughout this journey and would have been almost impossible without the role and contribution of others.

My deepest gratitude goes to Professor Abu Bakar Abdul Hamid, for his endless support and guidance, Professor Hishamuddin Md. Som, his reservoir of contribution towards a successful completion. An endless thanks goes to Professor Sazali Abdul Wahab, the Director, Professor Zulkornain Bin Yusof, the President/CEO and Madam Norizan Mohd Leman for her coordinator role from PUTRA Business School.

I am also grateful to Dr Ernest Yaw Tweneboa-Koduah, Dr. Braimah Mahamah, Dr Kobby Mensah, Dr Raphael Odoom and Dr Prince Kodua, at the Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship, University of Ghana Business School for their contribution. Not to forget to acknowledge the support of Dr Thomas Anning-Dorson, at the WITS Business School, University of Witwatersrand Johannesburg, South African; Dr Amoafo Samson; Dr Anthony Sumanya Kumassey, Dr. George Kudjoe Agbemabiese for their readiness and willingness at all times to provide directions.

DEDICATION

To my dad, Abubakar Siddique mum, Hajia Mariama

Seidu and siblings; Abdulai Abubakar,

Nuhu Abubakar, Issahack Abubakar,

Yakubu Abubakar, Zenab Abubakar

and Khadijah Abubakar

Zakari Bukari

To my lovely wife, Fazila Said and sweetie daughter, Aysha

Abu Bakar A Hamid

For my wife Nurzila and only son, Danial Fikiri, with love.

Hishamuddin Md Som

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Zakari Bukari

Dr Zakari Bukari earned his BSc Business Admin. from University of Professional Studies Accra, MPhil from University of Ghana Business School and PhD degree from Putra Business School, Malaysia. He had a decade of experience in teaching, research, industry exposure in marketing and cooperate engagement. Zakari has won several International Academic Scholar and Research Awards, among them are the 2019 PhD students Global Scholar Award and the 2020 PhD candidates Global Scholar Award, awarded by the Global Awareness Society International in Marrakech, Morocco and Las Vegas USA respectively. His research focuses on consumer behaviour, environment marketing in emerging market, political marketing, social media and engagement with smallholders in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Abu Bakar A Hamid

Dr. Abu Bakar A. Hamid is a distinguished Professor of Marketing and Supply Chain Management at PUTRA Business School. He earned his PhD from University of Derby (UK, 2003). He has demonstrated an excellent record of teaching and supervision for more than 25 years in the academic field. His achievement in graduating more than 40 PhD candidates proves his ability, capability and passion in postgraduate supervisions. He has shown excellent records of impactful research and publications which directly has strengthened his expertise in the area of his interest. He managed to secure several competitive national grants and consultant for various projects and later profoundly published in more than 300 articles in competitive international journals, proceedings, books and book chapters. Such commitment is truly an academician landmark. From the accolades, his academic recognition and leadership demonstrate the level of professorship. His notable contributions are recognized local and international, as invited speaker, reviewer, and editor in journals, external assessor and examiner. With such calibre, he was pronounced The Best Supply Chain Professor by The Golden Tigers 2019.

Hishamuddin Md som

Dr Hishamuddin Md. Som obtained his BSc in Business Administration, an MBA from University of San Francisco (US), and PhD Resource Management from University of Stirling, United Kingdom. Prior to joining academia at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia in 1989, he has had extensive experiences in various capacities in the manufacturing sector and as a banker for Standard Chartered Bank, Empire of America (San Francisco, USA) and Central Bank Malaysia. He is an editorial board member of several journals and have held several administrative posts as Assistant Dean (Postgraduate Studies) & Head Of Department as well as a Senate member and Committee members at the University & Faculty level of various universities. He is actively involved in numerous research and consultation activities at home and abroad and has also written several books and published in refereed international and national journal as well as proceedings. He is currently a professor of Management at Putra Business School, Malaysia.

CHAPTER 1

Political Landscape And Challenges

1.1 Background of the study

Involvement in the political election is essential to the strengthening of a democratic state. Yet almost half the countries in the world have voter turnouts of 60–79 percent (International Institute for Democratic Election Assistant (International IDEA, 2016 & Solijonov, 2016). Consequently, the global population of people entitled to vote has increased by more than double over the last four to five decades as a result of the end of the cold war, which stimulated the democratic process in many countries. This development has led to the liberalization of the political sector and the emergence of multi-party elections across the world (International IDEA, 2016). The general growth of the global population has led to an increase in the global voting population (International IDEA, 2016 & Solijonov, 2016).

This notwithstanding, the total number of registered voters has always been lower than the total estimate of the voter age population. Ir was reported that about 230 failed to turnout across the world in the decade 2001–10 as posit by (International IDEA, 2016) report. Despite the growth in the global voter population and the number of countries that hold elections, the global average voter turnout has significantly fallen below expectation since the early 1990s (International IDEA, 2016). The developed democracies including have all experienced a significant fall over the past fews decades. Asia and the Americas, recorded below global average voter turn out in most of the decades from 1940s (International IDEA, 2016 & Solijonov, 2016). Africa generally has recorded the lowest turnout over the entire period since the 1950s (International IDEA, 2016 & Solijonov, 2016).

From the forgoing discussions, it is an undeniable fact that the voter turnout, participation and intention is a global phenomenon. For example, only 53% of eligible voters turned out in the 2012 US presidential election (Desilver, 2016). With this development, the legitimacy of governmental rule is thrown into a debatable question. In fact, low voter turnout is problematic as it potentially complicates the democratic balance, if fewer people vote for the winning party, the possibility of the policies they propose, not representing the majority’s interests and the elected government becoming less representative of those whom they govern, will be inevitable (Urban, 2015). This phenomena has undoubtedly raises concern among scholars and practioners alike regarding the surest way to overcome this menance. In fact, in the face these challenges, Lee-Marshment (2005; 2019) however urged that politicians should give credence to marketing in all their endeavors and outlined substantial reasons why marketing scholras and should embrace political marketing Political marketing has been difened differently by by differet scholars; In the view of Lee-Marshment, (2019) Political marketing is the utilization and adaptation of marketing techniques and Concepts by political parties seeking to win elections all over the world. International IDEA, 2016 P.8) define voter turnout as the extent to which eligible voters use their vote on electionday. It is measured as the percentage of votes cast at an election, including invalid votes (IDEA, 2016 P.8). International IDEA (2016 P.8) categorised the eligible voters into two perspectives; first, the number of registered voters as officially reported by the national bodies responsible for compiling voters’ lists; and second, the voting age population (VAP), which is an estimate of the proportion of a country’s population that is of voting age.

Figure 1.1 GLOBAL VOTER TURNOUT

BY REGIONS FROM 1945-2015

image1.png

Figure 1.2 VOTER TURNOUT IN EUROPE, 1945-2015

image2.png

Source: International IDEA, 2016 and Solijonov, 2016

FIGURE 1.3 DIFFERENCES IN TURNOUT

AFTER THE END OF THE COLD WAR

AND THE MOST RECENT ELECTION

image3.png

SOURCE: International IDEA, 2016 and Solijonov, 2016

The above statistics from figure 1.1, 1.2 1.3 respectively have clearly shown that the political attitudes and behaviour of African voters is not significantly different from the western world as the declining and consistent voting patern is universal across all regions. Since 1960s, research scholars (Barkan, 1975; Hanna & Hanna, 1975; Preece & Mosweunyane, 2004; Chigunta, 2001) have conducted many studies on voters` political attitudes and behaviour in Africa’s countries, the findings revealed similar results (Ntsabane & Natu, 2006, p.100). In Ghana, the voting has followed a similar pattern and has been very dynamic. The available statistics has shown that the average turn out for the past two to three decades that is since 1992 is 64.34% (Electoral Commission of Ghana, 2016). The voting pattern has been inconsistent and very difficult to predict voters` behaviour as well as why the turnout is continually declining. The international recognition of Ghana’s democratic success has focused the attention of the world on the various indicators and components of democracy in Ghana with little attention paid to voters as principal stakeholders of election (Graham, Gyampo, Faanu & Yob, 2017). A great deal of research attention have been giving to Ghana’s democratic achievements (Debrah, 2011; Fobih, 2011) with over emphasize on seven uninterrupted elections under the fourth republic. This has been the main criteria for the evaluators of Ghana’s democratic potential, over the past few decades (Debrah, 2011; Gyimah-Boadi, 2009; Otchere-Darko, 2010).

However, the literature review on Ghana politics has hinted that, there is a limited concentration on the role of voters` behaviour, taking into consideration the unsatisfactory turnout trend since the beginning of the fourth republic (Graham et al., 2016; Ayittey, 2010; Taylor & Williams, 2008). It is worthy to note that imperative measure of any political campaign is the candidates’ spending of money and time to stimulate their ideas and policies such as political issues, candidate personalities, how to handle contingent situations epistemic value and social imagery (Newman, 2002) and creating their image (2001a; 2001b). Hence, it is crucial to understand why voters behave the way they do, to send a clear signal to the political party and its leaders about who is likely to vote for who and who is most likely to win the election. To do this they need to understanding why voters value one candidate or party over another, so that their behavior can be better understood and predict, which will enable judicious utilization of time and resources by management and campaign organizers (Neuman, 2002).

Table 2.1: Election Results Statistics in

Ghana Democratic Regime

1.2 Election Trend in Ghana

In December, 2016 election, out of 15,712 499 registered voters, 10, 029,923 voted in the parliamentary election representing 63.83 percent, in the presidential election, 10,781917 voted representing 68.62% (Ghana Statistical Service, 2016). In 2012, out of 14,158,890, 11,225,188 voted in the parliamentary election representing 79.28% whereas 11, 24982 voted in the presidential election representing 79.43% (Ghana Statistical Service, 2012). In 2008, out of 12,472,758 registered voters, 9,099,364 voted in the parliamentary election, that is 72.91% whilst 8,671,272 voted in the presidential election, which represents 69.52%, 8,549,978 voted in the presidential runoff election, which represent 68.55% (Ghana Statistical Service, 2008). In December, 2004, 8,728, 429 out of 10,354,979, voted in the parliamentary election, representing 84.29%, 8,813908 voted in the presidential election, representing 85.6% (Ghana Statistical Service, 2004 & Electoral commission of Ghana 2016). Out of 10,698,652 registered voters, 6,605,084 voted in the presidential election representing 61.74%, 6,459,003 representing 60.37% voted in presidential runoff election, 6,633,306, which is 62.0%, voted in the parliamentary election in the year 2000. The voter turnout in December, 1996 presidential election was 78.3% that is 7,266,693 people voted out of 9,279,605 registered voters (Ghana Statistical Service, 1996). There were 8,229,902 in 1992 out of which 4,127.876, that is 50.2% of the registered voters voted in the presidential election (Ghana Statistical Service, 1992).

The voting pattern has been inconsistent and very difficult to predict voters` behaviour as well as why the turnout is continually declining. This needs a clear insight from the principal stakeholders (voters) point of view. Since Ghana entered into fourth republic, seven uninterrupted general elections have taken place in the country with power changing hands between the two major political parties, namely National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP). All the siting presidents who context in election always retain power until 7th December, 2016. Over the last few decades many African countries have emulated some features of Ghana`s democratic pattern, notably, the embrace of elections, the acceptance of constitutional norms, the emergence of free media, active civil society, establishment of pressure groups, public opinions, press freedoms and the establishment of regional pro-democratic conventions and protocols (Gyimah-Boadi, 2001, p. 101). Against this background, Ghana is recognized as a model of democracy in Africa (Ayee, 1997; Gyimah-Boadi, 2001; Daddieh, 2009; Abdulai & Crawford, 2010; Gyimah-Boadi & Prempeh, 2012; Gyimah-Boadi, 2015). This could go a long way to explain the reasons why the peaceful political atmosphere of the nation’s 2016 general election, which resulted in successfully transfer of power from the incumbent to the opposition was not unexpected to the majority of the observers of democracy in Africa and across the globe.

Untill President John Mahama of the NDC who served one term in office, from 2013-2016, lost in his attempt to contest for a second term in the 2016 general election, no incumbent president seeking re-election had failed to retained power in Ghana`s political history from 1992. The regime issue could play a pivotal role in the outcome of this election as no political party has gone beyond two terms/regimes in Ghana`s political history since 1992. Again, no opposition party has ever won an election against a ruling party at the first round without going through a run-off election, making the Ghanaian political environment very turbulence and unpredictable until the recent 2016 election.

The extant literature on Ghana’s political issues and elections, including the work of (Gyimah-Boadi 1991; Kweneboah-Koduah, 2014; Kweneboah-Koduah, 2010; Mensah, 2011) have paid considerable attention to the process of transition to the constitutional rule. Others have discussed the 1992, 1996, 2000, 2008, 2012 and 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections and have hinted on a number of factors that may have the potential to influence the election outcome (Ayee, 1997; 2002; Smith, 2002; Daddieh, 2009; Gyimah-Boadi, 2001, 2009; Alidu, 2014; Fobih, 2008). Some scholars have researched the role of the media, civil society, andstate institutions in Ghana’s democratic consolidation (Whitfield, 2003; Arthur, 2010; Gyampo & Asare, 2015). The role of third parties in our democratic process and their abysmal performance in elections in Ghana, the role of ethnicity in Ghana’s politics, have likewise received considerable attention by scholars like Arthur (2009). However, the determinant of Ghanaian voters’ behaviour is yet to be considered. Considering the dynamic nature of the Ghanaians voting pattern since the emergence of the fourth republic, the voting pattern has been unstable, very difficult to predict. The unique nature of this study lies in the fact that it is arguably the first or at least one of the pioneering studies seeking to examine the determinants of Ghanaians voters` behaviour from different perspectives, given the dynamic nature of Ghana`s political landscape.

1.3 Benefits of Dertminats of Voters Behaviour Implemntation

In monetary terms, the cost of political campaign to the country has been very expensive. At the end of every four years, multimillion of US dollars is spent by the Ghanaian politicians to lured voters to participate and secured their votes. Multimillions of dollars is used by Ghanaian politicians to buy items to lured individuals for vote during political election. In effect, resources that could be hitherto be directed towards the provision of social and public goods, which will be beneficial to the entire citizenry are channelled to lured voters that could have been easily achieved through campaign strategies, political issues, political parties performance as well as trust and loyalty for political candidate and party respectively, if voters’ behaviour determinants are carefully examined. Irrespective of the amount of money spent by the politicians to induce voters to participate and vote for political candidate, the available statistics has shown that the voter turnout and participation in Ghana since 1992 has been nothing to write home about, fairly unstable and unpredictable over the period (EC, 2002 to 2016). Voting for a political party or a political candidate should be through the individuals’ own volition rather than been lured with incentives to participate or vote for a particular candidate. This implies that in future if the incentive that compels individuals’ voters to act is no more available, they will revert to their old normal voting behaviours.

Empirical evidence has shown that, the ntegration of marketing principles into politics in Ghana has not received inadequate attention (Tweneboah-Kodua & Hinson 2010). Studies on political election in Ghana have failed to examine the logic behind voters` behaviour largely because; most of them overlook the human behaviour aspect in presidential and parliamentary election that leads to unexpected outcome. This is because, voter dynamics, political issues and intentions have behavioural causes and demands behavioural examination towards its understanding (Lee-Marshment, 2005; Neuma, 2002; Neuman & Sheth, 1985; Lee-Marshment, 2009). Therefore, addressing the political issues from voters` point of view, which is the main objective of political marketing, could be an effective approach to implement political marketing strategies in developing countries like Ghana. Other scholars have argued that political marketing interventions can be enhanced with the use of theories and models of voters` behaviour (Chuchu, 2015; Johnson, 1999; 2001; Neuman & Sherth, 1985; Neuman, 2002).

Looking at the dynamic and unpredictable nature of Ghanaian voters over past two to three decades, it could be argued that they are rational in the sense that, they can elect you into office (reward you) when they think you are the best candidate to solve the economy`s problem and can vote you out of office (punish you) when they realized you are not leading up to expectation. Hence examining their behaviour by integrating the reward punishment theory /rational choice theory with psychological and party identification theory using the interaction and non-interaction effects of trust and loyalty with the various constructs (political issues, social imagery, candidate personality, situational contingency and epistemic value) in Newman’s (2002) model of voters behaviour, which is yet to receive scholarly attention in the political marketing literature, an important aspect that has been widely overlooked, is very important. The current study, therefore, seeks to apply models of voters’ behaviour in political marketing to understand the behaviour of Ghanaians voters towards the intention to choose a political party and candidate in parliamentary and presidential election. This empirical study focuses more importantly on determinants of voters` behaviour, which is crucial to the various stakeholders in politics interested in developing an appropriate strategy that will enable voters to participate and make voting decision in presidential and parliamentary election with the view of gaining competitive advantage over political opponents.

1.4 Motivation of the Study

Cosumer dynamics is increasingly gaining attention in today sophisticated, proliferated consummercial market, as a result, companies all over the world are now looking for an appropriate and improve strategy that will help them gain competitive advantage. This development has left no sector untackled, including the political areana. It is on this note that Scholars argued that successful organizations, irrespective of the governing hierarchy, being it political leaders, non-govermental organization or cooperate board, should have market orientation with the primary goal of delivery superior value to the target audience. Against this background, the marketers are therefore urged to engage in constant product and services innovation delivery strategy to satisfy their market consistently. Political parties have also adopted this market orientation process and are now looking for the securest way of delivering superior value to the their target audience at the least cost to enhance political participation and voter turnout. However, this cannot be achieved by the politicians without the application of marketing principles, they therefore depend on marketing research techniques through internal records, market intelligence, opinion poll, aforobarometer survey and focus group discussion to develop their policies and programmes which is delivered to the target market (voters) during political campaign in the form of product and service promise in exchange for their vote (Lee-Marshment, 2005). This raises their expectation and intend demand delivery of these product and services promise after winning election, that is customer/voter experience. In the light of this, Lee-Marshment (2009) call on the politicians to give credence to marketing before, during and after election and not only when in opposition. But unfortunately this is not the case in our cuuernt political dispensation, more importantly in the case of developing countries like Ghana and therefore required scholars’ attention. Lee-Marsment (2019) however, lend support to this assetion by further arguing that Marketing scholars should engage in political marketing and outline some pragmatic and Principled Reasons for why marketing academics Should research the use of marketing in the political arena. It is against this backgroung that the researcher seeks to contribute to current knowledge, theory and practice in the current ongoing debate by examining the relationship between determinants` of voters` behaviour, voters` trust, voters` loyalty and voting intenteion in emerging democracy, using Ghanaian experience.

1.5 Problem Statement

Citizens’ participation and choosing a particular party or candidate is very crucial for democratic consolidation and electoral outcome in an emerging democracy, it ensures through representation of the people. However on the average about 40% to 50% of the registered voters fail to turn out during presidential and parliamentary election in the world (International IDEA, 2016; Solijonov, 2016). Similarly about 40% failed to turn out for seven successive free and fair elections that have taken place in Ghana for the past two to three decades and the turn out keeps declining, this situation is not different from other countries in Africa (Preece & Mosweunyane, 2004; Chigunta, 2001; Electoral Commission of Ghana, 2016). Therefore, to ensure that citizens participate fully and predict the voting pattern in presidential and parliamentary election in Ghana, it is very important to examine the factors that influence voters` behaviour. To do this end it is worthy to know the kind of perceptions they form about the detriments of voters` behaviour.

Behavioural intention could be positive or negative based