ANC on course to win more than 65% – Election Poll

A friend reminded me recently that the ANC is a bit like your favourite soccer team. You can get angry with the manager and shout at the players, but loyal supporters never switch their allegiance. His assessment appears to be widely shared in South Africa – at least if you believe the latest poll published in the Sunday Times newspaper yesterday. It predicts that despite yet another scandal engulfing President Jacob Zuma, high unemployment, poor economic growth and growing corruption, South Africans will stick with the ruling ANC. The Official Opposition should be delighted by the predicted increase in the DA's share, but firebrands in Julius Malema's Economic Freedom Fighters, who believe he will be installed as President after the election, will be greatly disappointed by the findings. AGANG, meanwhile, has rejected the findings outright (see its statement at the bottom) – AH   

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – The African National Congress (ANC) is on course to win nearly a two-thirds majority in May 7 elections, a poll showed on Sunday, confounding analysts who had predicted a fall in support for South Africa's ruling party 20 years after the end of apartheid.

The poll, published by South Africa's Sunday Times newspaper, said the ANC was likely to win 65.5 percent of the vote, only a shade lower than the 65.9 percent it won at the last national elections in 2009.

The survey was conducted on April 4, after Public Protector Thuli Madonsela – South Africa's top anti-corruption watchdog – published a damning report into a $21 million state-funded security upgrade to President Jacob Zuma's private home.

Madonsela judged that Zuma had benefited unduly from the upgrades, which included a swimming pool, chicken run and amphitheatre at his residence at Nkandla in rural KwaZulu-Natal, and should pay back some of the money.

While overall support for the ANC remained largely unaffected by the Nkandla scandal, the poll said Zuma's personal approval ratings had slipped to 62 percent from 65 percent before Madonsela delivered her findings.

The poll also showed that the Democratic Alliance, the main opposition party that already governs the Western Cape province, was on track to build its national support from 16.6 percent in 2009 to 23.1 percent this year.

It put support for the Economic Freedom Fighters, a radical leftist party founded last year by expelled ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, at 4 percent.

The ANC has presided over strong economic growth since the end of apartheid in 1994, but Zuma's first term in office has been rocky.

The economy slipped into its first post-apartheid recession in 2009 and has struggled to regain the growth rates it logged before the global financial crisis.

The government is expecting economic growth this year of 2.7 percent, way below the levels needed to make any in-roads into 25 percent unemployment.

The police killing of 34 striking miners at Lonmin Marikana platinum mine in 2012 also drew widespread criticism, with many South Africans accusing the ANC-controlled police force of apartheid-style brutality.

Analysts had also expected the so-called 'Born Frees' – young South Africans with no first-hand experience of white-minority rule – to withhold their support for the ANC, which still uses its defeat of apartheid as its main draw card.

However, Election Commission figures show that only one in three voters aged 18-19 has registered to vote.

The poll, conducted by Ipsos, surveyed 2,219 voters nationwide.

AGANG SA REJECTS RESULTS OF LATEST IPSOS ELECTION OPINION SURVEY AS REPORTED IN THE SUNDAY TIMES OF 20.4.14 AS FLAWED AND HOPELESSLY OUTDATED

AGANG SA completely rejects the results of the latest election poll as reported in today's Sunday Times.

According to the poll, support for Agang SA was so low it failed to register.

This is completely laughable as is the suggestion that Agang SA will register fewer voters in the election than the IFP (2,8%), COPE (1,3%), ACDP (0,8%), VF+ (0,7%) and the UCDM (0,6%) and NFP (0,3%).

AGANG SA confidently predicts that it will not only beat the combined vote of all the above parties but that we will end up 3rd, ahead of the EFF.

Election polls are notoriously unreliable but this particular one is so inherently flawed as to rob the results of any credibility.

Firstly the survey is almost a month old. Secondly fewer than 2500 voters were polled which is hardly representative of a voting population of more than 26 million. Thirdly, we are not told how those polled were selected: what were the criteria according to age, race, gender, economic group etc?

Fourthly, as we are told, there is a significant error factor as regards the smaller parties.

There is also another serious defect in the survey's methodology: undecided voters were assigned to a party according to their answers to "key indicators". An undecided voter is an undecided voter and it is not for any pollster to make their minds up for them or to predict which way they will go. Nor are we told what was the percentage of undecided voters.

Finally, the poll results come with a disclaimer, namely that it is "not a prediction but a snapshot in time showing the mood of the electorate five weeks from election day."

In fact the poll was conducted almost 7 weeks before the election date. Since then we have had nearly a month's campaigning and there are still nearly 3 weeks to go.

As a "snapshot" the poll results are hopelessly outdated and do not at all give us a picture of what voters are currently thinking and what they are ultimately going to decide.