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A SURVEY that was conducted recently has shown that the voter’s trust may still lie with the African National Congress (ANC), and while the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) are likely to break new ground, the Democratic Alliance (DA) may suffer the biggest loss in these elections.
Eligible South Africans will head to the polls to elect their new leader in 23 days.
According to the Association of Free Research and International Cooperation’s (Afric) survey outcomes, the ANC, as it has for the past 25 years, will come out on top, with Cyril Ramaphosa maintaining his permanent stay as the president of South Africa.
The series of surveys Afric conducted took place between October 2018 and February 2019. The data was gathered using both qualitative and quantitative methods, including polls, focus groups and expert interviews.
In October 2018, the research institute collected data from 2 249 respondents and a further 1 501 between 29 January and 8 February 2019.
The respondents were all eligible voters.
They covered topics such as the main problems that need to be addressed in this country, attitudes towards the main political parties (ANC, EFF, DA), who they preferred in power and their attitude towards Ramaphosa.
Issues such as infrastructure, healthcare and poor political governance were issues of little to no relevance for the respondents.
Issues related to service delivery were of relevance but did not take priority to things like corruption (39.1%), crime (35.8%) and unemployment (73.2%).
The ANC enjoyed the most popularity in this topic. 59.9% of the respondents viewed the ANC in a positive light. The EFF, surprisingly, enjoyed less of anegativewith38.6%,ascomparedtotheDA’s43.7%
Pertaining to this question, 58.1% of the respondents leaned towards the ANC. The EFF would dethrone the DA as the official opposition party with 4.9% more votes than Maimane’s party if elections were to be held tomorrow.
The decline in support for the DA was largely contributed to the rise in popularity Ramaphosa has gained. 69.2% of the respondents noted that they would like to see the president continue his tenure well after the elections for another five years.
“Residents of the country perceive President Ramaphosа as a pragmatic and experienced politician, a person with a business mindset, which gives high hopes for improving the quality of life in the country,” the report surmised.
The survey identified a possible resurgence of the ANC under the rule of Ramaphosa, a trusted figure to most who have given his party one last chance to rectify the ills of its past.
The red berets have, according to the survey, attracted the youth. Although this is crucial in their advancements, the data says that the senior vote will likely go to the ANC.
The DA has suffered the biggest loss in numbers, according to the survey. Dropping into third place, significant losses in voter confidence and perception may hamper the party’s ambitions to rule outside of the Western Cape, as it had promised in the gains it made in the 2016 local government elections.
— News24
Online Reporter