JSPES, Vol. 43, No. 3-4 (Fall-Winter 2018)
pp. 246-271

What Influences Swing Voters’ Choices? Reflection on Ghana’s Elections  

Samuel Adams
Kingsley S. Agomor
Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA)

Wilfried Youmbi
African School of Economics, Benin

This paper examines the determinants of voting behavior of swing voters in Ghana using a cross sectional dataset generated from a nationwide survey of 2042 voters from the ten regions of Ghana based on six national elections held between 1992 and 2012. The descriptive and logistic regression results show that personality, human relationships, ability to deal with corruption, overall performance of the ruling party, and educational policy of political parties are key factors that have influenced swing voters’ choices. The study demonstrates that the Ghanaian voter (whether core or swing) has become sophisticated, defying many ‘conventional truths’ about African elections being an ethnic census.