The country’s fiercest political rivals and one time allies, the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the New National Party (NNP) on Friday used poll results to claim superiority over each other in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces.
The Markinor polls found the African National Congress (ANC) had 34% support in the Western Cape, followed by the DA with 22% and the NNP with 16%.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the ANC had 38% support, the DA eight percent, and the IFP 25%.
According to the polls, an ANC-NNP coalition would win the most support if elections were to be held in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal now, but would not secure an absolute majority in either province.
Reacting to these polls, DA federal council chairman James Selfe said the polls confirmed his party’s positive trend and the NNP’s collapse.
”The NNP is now smaller than the DA in every single province, including the Western Cape and the Northern Cape… It must be humiliating indeed for the NNP to hold the premiership when it is only the third biggest party in the Western Cape — the only province in the country where the NNP reaches double figures,” he said.
Selfe claimed the NNP’s support in the Western Cape had more than halved from 38% in 1999 to a mere 16%, while in the Northern Cape the party had shed more than three quarters of their support — from 24,7% to six percent.
”The DA, on the other hand, has fulfilled its aim of consolidating the opposition: it commands more than double the support the DP received in the Northern Cape in 1999, and nearly double that received in the Western Cape,” he said.
In the light of pending floor-crossing legislation, the DA has called for elections in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal to settle a dispute regarding a mandate to govern.
The NNP’s Daryl Swanepoel said the poll confirmed that the DA was in sharp decline while the NNP was on a strong upward trend.
”This trend must surely deepen the crisis that the DA is in. Its outright win in the Western Cape in December has been reduced to a mere 22%,” he said.
Swanepoel said that considering the poll was conducted before the Harksen funding scandal and the poor leadership of the DA regarding former premier Gerald Morkel, the DA’s position today was certainly far worse than indicated by the poll.
”The NNP, on the other hand is increasingly improving its support and as the message of hope and the advantages of co-operative governance between itself and the ANC are conveyed, the NNP is confident that it will consolidate its support and grow further,” he said.
Swanepoel said it was clear that more voters were opting for influence as opposed to increasing isolation. – Sapa