With just 4 months to the May 2019 polls in South Africa, the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), seems to be back in the good graces of the South African people. According to recent polls, the party has now increased its chances of winning its sixth consecutive national elections, after ex-President Jacob Zuma’s controversial tenure and eventual removal.
The first survey, carried out and released by the Institute of Race Relation’s (IRR) in December, revealed that the ANC had gained a little more support from South Africans between September and December, which now puts its support level at 56 percent.
The poll, which was carried out from November 26th to the 4th of December, centred its focus on party support, revealing that support for opposition parties, the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), dropped by 5 percent and 2 percent to new lows of 18 percent and 11 percent, respectively.
The survey had a 3.9 percent margin of error, with over 1,017 registered voters questioned, and comprised of three sets of questions around voting intentions, party favourability and the strength of support for Patricia de Lille’s newly proposed political party, when forced to choose between it and the four biggest political parties.
Another survey showed that party supporters alienated by Zuma’s tenure are slowly coming around under the current President and former labor union leader, Cyrill Ramaphosa. This particular survey was carried out by market research company, Ipsos.
The survey, which was published over the weekend, was conducted among 3,571 South Africans, and showed that the ANC had 61 percent of the voting public while opposition parties, the DA, EFF and the Inkatha Freedom Party settled for 14 percent, 9 percent and 2 percent of the electorates, respectively. Furthermore, 6 percent of the respondents revealed zero intentions of voting due to lack of interest or knowledge of which party to support, and 5 percent declined comment.
The ANC has been in power since 1994 with the election of the late President Nelson Mandela, and also securing 62.2 percent of support from the voting public in 2014. Unfortunately, party support dropped to 54.5 percent during the Zuma elections.
Ahead of the polls in May, Ramaphosa who took over in 2017 after Zuma was forced to step down, is gearing up for a second term. With promises of changing South Africa under a manifesto slogan tagged “Let us grow South Africa,” Ramaphosa has started campaigning, urging the youths to vote and be active participants in the election process.
