“Political earthquake” - IRR polling shows DA above ANC for the first time

The latest polling of voters by the Institute of Race Relations has thrown up what the IRR’s Hermann Pretorius describes as a “political earthquake” - a watershed rarely seen in SA’s leading think-tank’s 96 year history. Pretorius unpacks results of the twice a year survey which was conducted, co-incidentally, at the time of the Budget furore. He spoke to BizNews editor Alec Hogg..Watch here.Listen here.Edited transcript of the interview.Alec Hogg (00:06.638)Well, we always would have suspected that there would be a dramatic impact on the VAT positions that the political parties took, but we haven't been able to quantify it until right now. Hermann Pretorius joins us. He is with the Institute for Race Relations. They have just done a polling of the latest positions of South African political parties. And for the first time ever, the Democratic Alliance is ahead of the African National Congress. We'll find out more in a moment.Alec Hogg (00:41.806)Herman, this is pretty epic stuff if you want to step away from it. It's almost unthinkable - in 1994, that a tiny little political party would overtake the mighty African National Congress. But from your latest polling, that appears to be the case. Give us the headline numbers.Hermann Pretorius (01:01.368)Well, the headline can only be one thing, and that is that the DA, as you say, now on 30.3%, has overtaken the ANC on 29.7% for the first time in IRR polling history. Now, that is a marginal, a-slight-lead, but a lead nonetheless. And as you say, something that might have been absolutely unthinkable 30 years ago, 10 years ago, five years ago - even two, three years ago-if we think about the popularity that President Ramaphosa had when he came into office.But what is so incredible about this is, we didn’t plan on having an opinion poll in the field at the moment that the budget blew up in Parliament. But my word, what a coincidence-that gave us unique insights into what South African politics could become if the type of debate that dominated Parliament comes to dominate our political landscape heading into the next election cycle.Alec Hogg (02:03.436)Why do you do these polls?Hermann Pretorius (02:06.324)Well, since 1929, we've been trying to understand South Africa. That's the whole point of the IRR - we've been trying to understand the race relations of South Africa and what could ultimately lead to the maintenance of sound race relations. And over the years, we've found not only that race relations have been solid and sound, but that South Africans share a lot of socioeconomic aspirations across racial lines.And I think this poll is just another dramatic manifestation of that. We do these polls to understand: What is the public opinion thinking at a given moment? How does that impact our work? Do we need to talk about this issue a bit more, that issue a bit more, make the argument for classical liberalism, free-market values on this issue or that issue? And generally, it just helps us inform the public, the world out there, and ourselves about what's really going on in the country.Because a lot of people think they know what's happening in South Africa, but it really is quite something to work for an entity that not only seeks to honestly understand it, but does this polling every year. And we ask the political questions, we ask the race relation questions, we ask the policy preference questions. But we publish the political ones in isolation, in their own little report this time, because they were so explosive.Overtaking the ANC, the ANC support among Black voters falling from 50% to 37%, the DA support among Black voters going from 5% to 18%-I mean, this is unprecedented stuff.Alec Hogg (03:50.208)I had a fascinating discussion with your colleague, Makone Maja, last week. And in it, I opined-as many people who talk to me opine - that the DA needed a Black leader to make any progress amongst Black voters. And she kind of chided me by saying, "Hang on a minute. You might be thinking that way, but the population is not thinking that way."South Africans are actually getting over the whole race-based voting approach, and they're looking for other things, like: Who’s going to give us jobs? Who’s going to do better for the economy? Why are we continuing to be poor by following ideological ideas that are 30 years old?It seems as though she might have had an insight into what you're releasing this week-or if not that, she’s much closer to the pulse of the nation than most external commentators.Hermann Pretorius (04:51.448)I think it's a bit of both, to be honest. The Institute’s polling has been showing this fundamental, instinctive, moderate, non-racial South Africa to be out there the whole time. And I think for the DA particularly, this breakthrough among Black support-they’ve been chasing it for 20 years.And they've tried various attempts at breaking through. I mean, under the leadership of Helen Zille, there was this settling into non-racialism that the PFP and the DP had had-but a sort of multiracialism that tried to do "capable racism," if I could coin a phrase.It wasn't about not seeing the colour of the people we’re dealing with and just treating them as individuals. It was about playing the race card, but playing it sort of constructively. And that led to the leadership of Mmusi Maimane, which was controversially described by one of his predecessors as "an experiment."But I think this has been a simmering assumption for the DA - that if they want to break through and grow their support from Black voters, they needed to, quote-unquote, "do Black politics" or "have Black policies."And I think this VAT issue-the crystallisation that brought to the debate-is so powerful. Because the budget, VAT-that is something that absolutely does not discriminate on race. And it was an issue on which you couldn’t conceivably position whites on that side, Blacks on that side, Coloureds over there, and Asian South Africans there.It was just an instinctively, inherently, unquestionably race-neutral issue of aspiration, of socioeconomic ability. And that has cut through. It has earned them the breakthrough that they've been trying for so long to achieve through what I would call-and what I think Makone would agree-superficial pandering means.Hermann Pretorius (06:51.275)And now we see that that was sort of all for naught. If we're going to be a non-racial country, as most people want us to be, if the DA is going to be a non-racial party, as it claims to be-well, it's about time that they fought and won on an issue of real non-racialism.And the VAT issue seems to have been that. It seems to have been this catalyst of turning long-simmering frustration with the ANC into a real change. Because we must remember: this is the ANC that lost their majority because of NHI, because of expropriation without compensation, because of sluggish economic growth.And then the ANC went into the GNU, and instead of taking in a posture of humility and compromise-and perhaps using it as an excuse to get back to Mbeki-era pragmatism-they doubled down. And the public started to see the GNU as just another continuation of the ANC, punishing the ANC for it.And then along came the “VATitude” that just created this binary. And Black South Africans, for the first time-close to 20%-can now go, “Oh, I am not the sum of my melanin, but the sum of my aspirations, my character, my values. I don’t want to live in an economy where we have extortionate taxes.”And that catalysed a shift that I’ve never seen before-a very promising shift-showing that, as James Carville said in the 1992 American election, “It’s the economy, stupid.”Alec Hogg (08:27.234)Yeah, it certainly has. But let's just-well, in South Africa, it hasn't always been the economy, because the economy has been flatlining for 15 years. But it should. I agree. From your perspective, it should have been. I think the point here is that you polled it-sorry, Herman-you were polling at exactly the time that the VAT confrontation was going on. How much of an impact would that have?Hermann Pretorius (08:34.758)But it should’ve been.Hermann Pretorius (08:42.079)But I think also from the voters’ perspective...Alec Hogg (08:56.236)And then if we look further-how does the DA retain its lead, and how does the ANC rebound?Hermann Pretorius (09:04.117)So I think you're absolutely right, and we say this in the polling report: that the polling happened at a unique moment, when economic policy-socioeconomic policy - just broke through and defined politics.But if we look carefully at the last 30 years of democracy, the clues have always been there. At the IRR, one of our signature graphs overlays ANC support with GDP growth, with job creation, with the rollout of housing, electricity, and water services. And these lines correlate so beautifully.If you look at the 70% of the vote that the ANC got in 2004, we had a strong economy, unemployment was inching downward, housing rollout, welfare rollout - all socioeconomic factors aligned perfectly. For Mbeki-not a much-loved figure. So it can't have been his personal vote or his charisma, Mandela-like, that carried the ANC to 70%.It was that, at the time, the economy was booming, socioeconomic aspiration got a chance to breathe. People thought, “My word, we can actually trust the ANC with these aspirations I have - for me, for my kids, my loved ones.”And that then got lost. And as that got lost, the ANC’s support continued to decline.Then the budget came up, and it was this bolt from the blue - this breath of fresh air - for socioeconomic policy to just again shamelessly and in a binary way define the political question.So it's always been the economy for ordinary people in South Africa. But it's been, I think, with politicians who have read the room incorrectly-thinking that South Africans are more obsessed with the sort of race divisions and the who's up, who's down - rather than asking, “Can’t we just have a rising economic tide?”What should the DA do from this? How can it maintain its lead? It's not going to be easy. It really isn’t going to be a walk in the park. No one should assume that this is the new status quo irrevocably - ANC and DA fighting at the 30% mark. But it can be that...Hermann Pretorius (11:28.825)...if the DA grasps the moment to say: Let’s use the inspiration of the VAT discussion, let’s use the socioeconomic potency to define the next election campaign.If the DA allows the ANC to do one of two things: either redefine the political debate on its terms about wealth redistribution with racial undertones, or if it allows the ANC to get away with a shameless pivot to Mbeki-era economic pragmatism, I think we’re looking at the ANC regaining the lead that they have just lost.But if the DA can maintain the idea that going to the ballot box - casting a vote - is the voter deciding for higher or lower taxes... If that could be the message - that when you go into that booth, you pick up that little stubby pen or pencil and you cast a ballot, you’re deciding the VAT increase or the VAT decrease-that then allows the DA to take this polling finding and transform it into the reality of a new landscape.If they don't do that, this poll will be very interesting as an investigation into an alternative reality of what would happen - or what were to happen - if South African politics were driven by socioeconomic policy.But if they get to that point, where politics is driven by that, then I see no reason why we can't maintain this level of electoral competition, with the DA being really competitive and the ANC really starting to clean up its act - if it wants to at all get back into the area of being South Africa’s consistently reliable largest party.Alec Hogg (13:16.984)Well, we’ve had on the screen perhaps the most important of the graphs that you have there. And let’s just talk this through. This is your second polling since the national election, where the ANC came down from 57% to 40% of the vote.To see the ANC under 30% of the vote at this point in time is going to be sending all kinds of shock signals through Luthuli House. And to see the DA moving up at this point in time will clearly embolden it too.But what is interesting is, immediately post the-well, six months after the May 2024 election - the ANC had actually gone up, and the DA barely moved. So what happened there?Taking the VAT out of it, what has happened subsequent to that, which has seen this dramatic change in fortunes?Hermann Pretorius (14:23.859)Definitely. Overall frustration with the fact that ANC policy seems to dominate, despite the GNU being widely popular.If we look at the polling, the GNU-even before the election - South Africans considered it a desirable outcome. This idea of getting the parties to work together. This belief that a constructive relationship between the ANC and the DA could bring out the best in the ANC. That the GNU could actually help the ANC rediscover its pragmatism-its sort of policy framework that delivered massive economic growth in the first 10 years, where we saw the number of Black South Africans in employment double between 1994 and the 2010s.So there was this aspiration, this hope, that the ANC in the GNU would listen, as it were, to the better angels of their nature-with the DA playing a powerful role in getting the ANC to do that.Instead of a chastised, humbled ANC returning to a sort of pragmatism, we’ve seen the opposite. And we’ve seen NHI being pushed aggressively forward, despite not being a popular policy. We’ve seen expropriation without compensation-same story.We’ve seen a doubling down, a tripling down, a quadrupling down on BEE regulations. And this new transformation fund announced along racial lines that simply do not register with the South African public as feasible solutions.So the ANC benefited from the GNU initially, because there was this idea that, now we're going to get the crazies out of the room-the people who’ve been radicalising the ANC, who’ve been dragging them away from the pragmatic centre.And then that turned out not to be the case. And the VAT issue just sort of broke through the sound barrier on that crystallised it to show that, sort of like Margaret Thatcher by 1990, the ANC has lost its connection to listen to the public.All iron ladies start to rust at a certain point. And when a political party as formidable as the ANC loses the ability to read what the public is telling them, you see this sort of electoral and political earthquake happening.Alec Hogg (16:50.114)Thanks for unpacking that, because that would also explain why the PA and the IFP improved by being part of the Government of National Unity but have gone radically backwards after supporting the VAT hike.Hermann Pretorius (17:06.677)Indeed. Indeed. And they were prominent in that debate, whereas a party like the Freedom Front Plus, who was with the DA in opposing VAT, was a bit invisible in the debate - being the victim of just a DA discovering a stance it could hold unapologetically, with confidence, that it is now clear resonated with the public.If we look at what happened, especially also to MK and the EFF - election results were down from the election results by the end of last year because they were outside of the GNU. They were outside of this popular, moderate mechanism for decision-making.And then they put themselves on the right side of VAT. They saw their support return to election levels.So almost every party has a story to tell here: what did they do with the GNU? What did they do with the VAT issue? And the voters saw that as an indication of who’s really on “our side.” And it seems not to have been the ANC at this point.Alec Hogg (18:14.776)What about ActionSA? Because that’s been a mystery in many respects. The 2024 elections saw them falling sharply from where they were in the local elections in 2021. But they've bumped up quite happily-or quite well-despite being part of the reason why the VAT increase is going ahead.Hermann Pretorius (18:39.350)So I think we can look at two historical examples of small parties gaining the advantage or showing significant growth. The first one is the DP between ’94 and ’99. And then the second one is the PA between 2019 and 2024.What these two parties managed to do was project such prominence and relevance that the big players had to meet them on the battleground.And one sees that very clearly in the “Fight Back” campaign of 1999, where the DP deliberately wanted to position themselves as the other person in the ring-not just the ANC, no longer the National Party-but the DP being, as it were, the anti-ANC. And they got that. They got the ANC to buy that it was now a contest between the ANC and the DP.And the same with the PA last year. They got the DA and the ANC to take them seriously - seriously enough to deal with them, to include them in aggressive messaging-so that the PA could ultimately see an almost 5,000% increase in its vote between 2019 and 2024.And ActionSA has managed a similar feat. They have managed to get the big parties to seem as though they are responding to ActionSA.This was prominence politics of a very high ability. Now, does that mean ActionSA will maintain that level of support? Perhaps. Possibly. But the first step in getting support is to be prominent - then to be relevant, then to be consistent.So they have gotten their prominence. They've gotten their relevance, at least for now. The question is, can they now be consistent? Can they be a permanent player in terms of the power dynamics?But there’s also, I think, something here that in consumer science and marketing speaks to this idea of mere exposure. People see things, and consumers-and voters-aren’t always the most rational decision - makers. They pick the product or the party that they've recently heard about.So well done to ActionSA for being one of those parties over these last few weeks during the time of this survey. They've played the prominence game well.And they are the only party to, as it were, go against the pattern of seeing pro-VAT parties having their support fall. They’ve gone the opposite direction. Good politics.Now let’s see - can they maintain that?Alec Hogg (21:14.414)This is an interesting table that you included in your distribution of your report, where you have a look at Black registered voters and who they would be voting for if an election were held today.The ANC dropping from, as you said earlier, 50% to 37%. The blue line being the polling from six months ago, the red line from where it is today.But there's no question that the big winner here is the Democratic Alliance, and the big loser here is the IFP. MK also doing better, as does the EFF. Could you just talk us through that, please?Hermann Pretorius (21:54.132)Yeah, no - it is incredible. I think this was the moment when I actually had to put down the data and just sit back and understand that the DA has gone from having the equivalent of 10% of the ANC’s support among Black voters to having 50%.That is an amazing, remarkable change for the DA to have accomplished.And it betrays the fact that so many people have been wrong about thinking that socioeconomic policy can’t be the breakthrough issue.But the IFP and the ANC - the clear losers here—for being on the wrong side of a bread-and-butter issue.Black South Africans, white South Africans - it doesn’t matter. Bread-and-butter issues are bread-and-butter issues.And to have gotten this call wrong, from the IFP, might just be the interruption of a 10-year project of slow but steady regrowth.If I were the ANC, the most nervous party from this poll should be the ANC. But in second place, it should be the IFP - who’ve seen the gains they’ve made since 2016 wiped out, essentially, by one decision.One unpopular decision on a bread-and-butter issue.And to have MK and the DA in a close contest for the second position among Black registered voters alone is just inconceivable - if one were to assume racial politics as the defining factor over the last few years.And I think the next slide - I hope you have it - is that by income breakdown. That is also an amazing piece of information: to see that we’ve broken down our respondents into four income categories - under R2,000 a month household income, between R2,000 and R8,000, between R8,000 and R20,000, and above.And in three of the four income categories, the DA now leads.In households with under R2,000 a month income, the DA is now the most popular party.I don’t think anyone could have predicted that. It is a breakthrough that the DA should be cherishing and building on - to say: “We are now the party, or we can become the party, of the aspirant have-nots of South Africa.”Hermann Pretorius (24:15.049)We can shake this idea of being a minority middle-class party.Alec Hogg (24:20.622)It's an extraordinary table. 29% of those under R2,000 a month would vote for the Democratic Alliance versus 25% for the EFF, which you would imagine to be strong in that area.Perhaps the penny has dropped - and the penny is: if you have economic growth, then there are more jobs. If you do not have economic growth, then there are no jobs or you're going to lose jobs.I wonder though, Hermann, was there anything in your polling which brought up the fight that South Africa has with the United States at the moment, given that the U.S. culture is so deeply embedded in so many parts of our society? Might this also have played a role in any of this?Hermann Pretorius (25:08.788)That is possible. Unfortunately, we didn’t poll for that. It is, of course, possible - I can’t exclude it as a possibility.But what I would say is that it is unlikely for foreign affairs and international relations to affect the thinking of sub-R2,000-a-month households.If we just assume that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is accurate, we're looking at people who are struggling with steps one and two on that hierarchy - who don’t have the luxury of considering Trump’s latest decision on tariffs or his latest attack on a political opponent or his latest claim, false or not, about South Africa.So that is definitely possible, and I think if you look at the polling from the Brenthurst Foundation, SRF polling as well, you see that this issue has cut through - and the blame seems to be landing mainly on the ANC.So that is, of course, another risk factor for the ANC - another issue they seem to be on the wrong side of.South Africans have always been moderate. We are not a heavily ideological country. And the DA has managed to get the bread-and-butter issues - with their graph currently on the screen - showing that with bread-and-butter issues, you can maintain your base if you're the DA, but you can also grow your support from Black voters three-, four-fold.Which should terrify the ANC. If the ANC continues along this line of ceding the socioeconomic argument to the DA, they are handing the DA the weapons - the ammunition - with which to end ANC dominance and the ANC’s status as South Africa’s largest party, for good.Alec Hogg (26:59.470)I just want to end off with this graph again - go back to this chart - because as you mentioned earlier, at the previous polling, the Democratic Alliance, if you were a Black person who was being asked, the DA would get one in 10.Black people would say DA versus ANC. Now it’s one in two - sorry, one in three.Hang on, I can’t quite get this - but it’s 50% of where we were. So if you’ve got three Black people who are being polled, then one would be saying today “DA,” and two would be saying “ANC.”If six months ago, of 10 people polled, nine would be saying ANC, one would be saying DA.That is a massive, massive swing. And I can see why you’ve put so much emphasis on the fact that South Africans appear to be losing this identity politics - or identity politics is becoming subservient to “What are my future prospects? Are my kids going to have jobs? How’s my economy going to do?”And I guess it had to, at some point in time, start registering.Hermann Pretorius (28:11.599)Absolutely. And one of my favourite questions that we, every few years, ask South Africans is: “Do you want your child’s teacher to be the same race as you, or doesn’t it matter as long as the teacher is good?”90% of South Africans say it doesn’t matter, as long as the teacher is good.If you can trust your child’s education to someone - not on the basis of their race but on the basis of what they can add, the value they can bring - then you can trust the economy to a party on the same principles.We are looking possibly at the beginning of the end of apartheid-era racial classifications, where impatience with the ANC has run out, and the willingness of voters to go shop around - to places that they have never before considered shopping at, like the DA - is an exciting thing.But as I said before, this isn’t the done deal. This isn’t the end picture. This isn’t the photo finish.This is just the start of what should be a political realignment based not on how different South Africans look, but on how similar they want their lives to be.Our socioeconomic aspirations drove the moment that gave us this poll.If it can drive the political debate going forward, we will likely see this sort of result become the new reality.Alec Hogg (29:48.590)Hermann Pretorius is with the Institute for Race Relations. Well, I’m not sure whether we’ve seen a watershed, but it certainly does appear to be a move in a direction which is becoming increasingly embedded.The previous poll that we spoke to on BizNews was from the Social Research Foundation - which was, shock horror, the ANC was down from over 40% to 32%.On this one, it’s perhaps even more of a seismic shift - below 30% - but more so that the DA has now gone ahead.I’m Alec Hogg from BizNews.com.

“Political earthquake” - IRR polling shows DA above ANC for the first time

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