I am definitely predicting a first round victory for John Mahama, and also but with less confidence predicting he will get over 50% and there will not be a second round.
The regional swings look like this with 91 constituencies in my calculations:
Ashanti Region 1.9% swing to NDC
Brong Ahafo 3.9% swing to NDC
Central Region 1.9% swing to NDC
Eastern Region 0.5% swing to NDC
Greater Accra 1.4% swing to NPP
Northern not enough results
Upper East not enough results
Upper West 21.4% swing to NDC
Volta 3.2% swing to NDC
Western 2.9% swing to NDC
John Mahama needs an overall swing of 1.5% compared to the 2008 first round to overtake Nana Addo, and needs an overall swing of approximately 2.4% to get over the 50% margin and win in one round. That is an estimate based on the poorer performance of minor parties.
It looks like he will do it, but this is a projection based on a third of the results (not all of which were useful due to complex boundary changes). It is a fact that the majority of the first dozen or so results declared gave a definite swing to Nana Akuffo Addo and the NPP, across a variety of constituency types and regions, causing me and other pundits to jump to quite wrong conclusions. It cannot be ruled out that there will come a long run of swings to the NPP, but it is looking statistically unlikely now.
The swing is pretty consistent and there are not obvious anomalous results. The massive swing to Mahama in Upper West is in part a reflection of the expected northern excitement at having a northern president, and was predicted. I expect we will see larger than average swings to Mahama in Upper East and Northern as well.
Trust the Mail and the Telegraph to produce these leads online
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2246288/Census-data-Immigrant-population-England-Wales-jumps-THREE-MILLION-10-years.html
‘British whites’ are the minority in London for the first time as census shows number of UK immigrants has jumped by 3million in 10 years
Just 44.9% of Londoners are White British, according to census data
7.5million residents of England and Wales were foreign-born in 2011
Census data reveal just 59% now call themselves Christian as a quarter say they have no religion and 5% are Muslim
Less than 90% of country is white for the first time ever
Home ownership declines but more people have paid off their mortgages
plus a handy UK map showing densities of ‘foreign born’.
~~~~
Census 2011: sharp rise in number of foreign-born residents
The number of people living in England and Wales who were born overseas has risen by nearly three million to 7.5m, the latest census data shows.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/9736755/Census-2011-sharp-rise-in-number-of-foreign-born-residents.html
plus a photo of a packed out Heathrow passport queue.
Mary,
Note the “The Foreign Office is fighting to keep secret an immigration blacklist of 44 countries” under the passport queue photo here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/9736755/Census-2011-sharp-rise-in-number-of-foreign-born-residents.html
The question is: Is this not a racist-segregation sort of thing? I bid most of these 44 countries are inhabited by Non-Whites.
I wonder whether American banks get cluttered for wrongdoing or are the regulators simply trying to cripple the competition?
Or American oil companies on this matter.
I wondered aloud here a year or two ago about Avaaz. I had a bad feeling about them, though I admit at the time this was based on no more than the hideous management-speak of their website (they had all sorts of wonderful things ‘in their DNA’). Maybe some corroboration here – any other contributions welcome.
Excerpt:
‘In February, Avaaz began a petition against the BDS Movement, a “global movement for a campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights was initiated by Palestinian civil society in 2005.’
Is his success down to using that catchy song from The Muppets that has (almost) his name as half the lyrics?
Seriously though, what are the policy differences between the two men? (not saying there are none i just have no idea what either of their platforms is)
Vronksy – Avaaz are not propagandists for Israel. Anyone can start a petition on any subject on the Avaaz website.
http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/?hp
Just because an Israeli government sympathiser managed to get lots of people to sign his does not mean Avaaz are biased.
March 2011: Syria Uprising
Avaaz has been involved in supporting activists in Syria by providing communication equipment such as satellite phones and cameras so that videos could be posted online of the government crackdown. Additionally, Avaaz has sent in trainers to help teach how to use the phones as well as how to do citizen journalism. Avaaz helped to coordinate the entry of at least 34 international journalists into war zones in Syria, including the French photographer Rémi Ochlik and the American journalist Marie Colvin (both died during the battles in Homs) and French reporter Edith Bouvier, who was badly hurt.[43] To help evacuate the British photographer Paul Conroy from the city of Homs, on 28 February the group coordinated an operation by Syrian activists, helped evacuate 40 seriously wounded people from the neighbourhood of Baba Amr, and brought in medical supplies.[44] An article in The New Republic claimed that Avaaz has exaggerated its role in the escape.[45] In Syria, Avaaz set up a network of about 200 activists to provide video footage, which has been used by the international media and also helped to smuggle medical equipment into the country.[43]
ex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avaaz
“In Syria, Avaaz set up a network of about 200 activists to provide video footage, which has been used by the international media”
Was Danny Dayem one of those?
“Anyone can start a petition on any subject on the Avaaz website.”
That used not to be the case – maybe it’s the case now. Ali Abunimah highlighted the fact that people/members could only make suggestions, not set up petitions. Decisions about actual petitions were made by the ‘higher ups’ at Avaaz.
Why does the BBC commit itself to the term ‘loyalist violence’, when there is nothing loyal or complying about such violence, surely these rogue elements are not loyal to the union or anything, not even to their own families/tribes, endangering them with their selective and selfish violent actions.
Loyalists are terrorists are they not?
Nevermind,
Many belong to one of the various Loyalist paramilitary groups. But not all.
The question has been asked here on TV if paramilitary groups are orchestrating the current violence, and the general thinking appears to be, Yes. But you have youths coming out on the streets on their own too.
PSNI ACC Will Kerr has pointed to a loyalist paramilitary link to some of last week’s violence.
Elsewhere, a DUP councillor whose home was damaged in a frightening weekend attack, has said that it is “open season on elected representatives at the moment”.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/belfast-flag-violence-businesses-left-to-count-cost-as-up-to-3m-lost-due-to-protests-16248582.html
I guess that quite a number of commenters on this blog believe that protest on the street is fine when it comes to opposing elements of the government’s economic (and other) policies, despite the fact that those policies have been arrived at by a majority in a democratically elected parliament.
Why then should those same commenters condemn the street protests in Belfast against the decision of the Stormont executive (the decision of the majority of that executive) to stop flying the country’s official flag every day?
Are there any capitals in Europe, other than London, in which a majority of the inhabitants are not white people born in the country concerned?
Habbabkuk
Does “opposing elements of the government’s economic (and other) policies” generally involve throwing a petrol bomb into an occupied police car?
Or attacking police with ‘petrol bombs, bricks, masonry, bottles and fireworks’?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-20676315
And all this over a flag … which currently flies over the building for 15 days a year.
I suggest you read up some more, Habbabkuk.
I started watching the BBC documentary called “Cuba with Simon Reeve” tonight (9pm) foolishly thinking that it may be an interesting take on Cuba and recent changes taking place there.
I stopped watching after 20 minutes in anger at the blatant western pro-capitalist propaganda against a country that chose to reject a US supported dictatorship and adopt a different social and economic system.
The buildings that are collapsing through lack of maintenance, which Reeve and the BBC highlight and blame on the Castro government, are actually collapsing because the USA and other countries, through an illegal blockade, refuse to supply Cuba with building materials like cement, timber, aggregate and even paint.
I will re-post when I have watched the whole programme after taking my blood pressure pills.
As for your question about European capitals: for starters, it’s forbidden to ask ethnicity or religion in the French census.
it is quite hard to be living in this miasma in these days…
…people seem to value all those intelectual things..before they value our own humanity…I sure need a lot of strenght in order to carry on…
a x
am i the only one who cries for our souls ..?
hey Craig, sorry, I did not mean to come on so weak…I love your words by the way…long may you continue to “give” us your energy…a x
@Habbabkuk Because the decision was just to fly the Union Jack only every other day and to fly the Irish flag on the other days, which is pretty reasonable given almost half the population of Northern Ireland being Republicans – and because the street protests in Belfast were violent – and because no-one sane riots over which flag you put up unless it’s e.g the flag of an occupying military.
Mark Urban has been busy on Newsnight tonight, not with his magic marker pen on a map this time, but with a map of Syria with red splodges indicating where Assad’s ‘chemical weapons’ are stored. Much use of words like ‘rumoured’. A snake oil saleman.
His partner in crime was a Hamish de Bretton-Gordon.
http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/hamish-de-bretton-gordon/35/a9a/37a Enough said.
Followed by a spokesman for the Syrian opposition who had a good American accent Yaser Tabbara http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaser_Tabbara and Adrian Sindall a former Ambassador to Syria in the 90s. The latter was pretty caustic about Urban and Tabbara’s views and was very measured. His own views should definitely be listened to by the likes of Hague and Cameron.
This is a very long interview with Mr Sindall (which I have skimmed) about his life and work as an Ambassador. Interesting facts and opinions about Syria and the politics of the region .
http://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/collections/BDOHP/Sindall.pdf
I guess Habbabuk it boils down to the fact that which flag or even if any flag or simply a pair of underpants is hung on daft great pole, is of complete indifference to people, in contrast with economic and other policies which if they aren’t of consuming interest to the bulk of the populace they should be, and if those policies do not serve the people governed’s mutual best interests then let it be known but pyromaniacs shouldn’t be invited to the party, should stay at home, contented with colouring-in books. If people are so enamoured of much else that such a trivial matter as a flag convulses a few them then the protestors need to carry out some self-examination and find some less rotten cause.
What exactly, is the push=back on Syrian rebels? I understand there is some involvement from AQ and that Soviets and Iran support Assad, but is that the crux?
It’s not like Assad has any human rights creds, is it? If it’s the hypocrisy of Western diddling in ME affairs, as the insect in the Ointment, what kind of dissidence can it be to support a tyrant?
@ Ben Franklin.
“It’s not like Assad has any human rights creds, is it? If it’s the hypocrisy of Western diddling in ME affairs, as the insect in the Ointment, what kind of dissidence can it be to support a tyrant?”
None of them Ben,not East nor Weat have any human rights cred.Follow the money,greed,hubris and madness and you’ll get closer to some kind of truth.
@ Mary
Do the Mail on line and Telegraph with there views on the changing demographics of London, not appreciate that London and the uk are a place to better oneselves, which is wholy understandable and should be encouraged.
There headlines are thus devicive as any form of racism is intolerable and it is a free world.
Cameron breaks a promise. No surprise. Another state scandal is covered up.
http://news.sky.com/story/1024025/finucane-murder-report-due-to-be-published
Background.
http://sluggerotoole.com/2011/10/11/camerons-decision-on-finucane-case-insults-family-betrays-us-all/
The author of the latest ‘report’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Lorenz_de_Silva
In October 2011, with the approval of the Prime Minister David Cameron, Sir Desmond was appointed to head a Review into collusion by the security services and other agencies of the state into the 1989 murder of the high profile Belfast lawyer Patrick Finucane who was noted as a defence solicitor for Irish republican defendants charged with terrorist crimes.
Honours
Sir Desmond was knighted in the 2007 New Year Honours, and is also a Knight of the Most Venerable Order of Saint John and a Knight Commander of the Royal Order of Francis I. He was sworn in as a Member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in October 2011.
~~~
Geraldine Finucane and her family have been denied the inquiry they have asked for. I hope she keeps fighting to expose the facts about what was a state organized murder of one of its citizens.
On THAT rocket launch….
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1355298486.html
BBC presenter just now. ‘Very worrying for the Japanese. Over to you Rupert Wingfield Hayes in Tokyo.’
Rupert. ‘Yes very worrying indeed Carrie…..’
Followed by Damian Grammaticus in Beijing. Ditto.