Ghanapolitics 101: Deja Vu moments and being Too Close to Call

In the Beacon of Democracy, the incumbent and main contender are in an outright fight to the death. A show of hands please for the number of people in the class who thought I was talking about Ghana? Wrong you were. In fact, since 2000, the parallels between the Ghanaian elections and the US elections are a tad eerie. 

Speaking of the US, where terms like Romnesia are new entrants into the political lexicon, a new Gallup poll is describing the upcoming election as "too close to call" .Very reminiscent of the (in)famous US Election 2000. 

Meanwhile, over in the Beacon of African Democracy, Ghana, current events are rapidly evolving the political landscape which are also making election outcomes hard to predict. With just under 50 days to go until poll day, some rules that have applied in recent elections are now being defied /thrown out the window as the soap opera qualities of Ghanaian politics are becoming more apparent.  

Despite the unexpected twists and turns, Ghana Election 2012 is beginning to have a strange deja vu quality reminiscent of Ghana Election 2008 where things were also too close to call:

BBC Focus on Africa magazine cover: 2008

Interestingly, JoyFM's online poll of the moment appears to suggest otherwise. 

Polls on JOY [FM]: "If elections were held today, who would you vote for?"

Fascinatingly, 105,375 people voted in this poll. This is more than any other poll featured on Joy FM's website which usually attracts around 5,000 voters at the most. So where are all these voters coming from in a poll that opened on 11 October 2012?

According to the poll results, 45.14% of voters would vote for the incumbent party the NDC. The poll also predicts that 37.75% of the 105,375 would vote for the newly emergent party the PPP. In 3rd place is the party that is perceived/believed to be the main contender to the incumbent, the NPP commanding 16.71% of the vote. So how credible is this JoyFM poll? Are the PPP being seriously underestimated?

Or is it just a simple case of clear-browsing-history-vote again? So I did try just that to find out. I cleared my browsing history and could in fact vote again.....three times.

The moral of the story is that its important to take polls, predictions and prophesies regarding Ghana election 2012 with a pinch of salt. 

My money is still on the election being way too close to call. What are your thoughts?