Although all political parties have lost support recently, the African National Congress (ANC) continues to be the dominant party in South Africa, according to the latest Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa) survey.
The results of Idasa’s Afrobarometer survey on political party support, released in Cape Town on Friday, show that 42% of voters would vote for the ANC ”if a national election were held tomorrow”.
”At the same time, this represents a significant decline from the 56% who indicated that they would vote for the ANC in the last Afrobarometer survey conducted in August and September 2000.”
Idasa’s executive director Paul Graham said in an accompanying statement, the figures suggested there had been no seismic shift in party support — the main argument used to justify the new floor crossing laws passed earlier this year.
”As earthquakes go, this one barely rattled the cups on the mantelpiece,” he said.
”These survey results appear to confirm that there was no significant mid-term realignment of party support and sentiment. The democracy barometer shows that voter choice remains broadly the same as it was in the actual elections of 1999 and 2000,” Graham said.
The latest survey was conducted at 600 randomly selected sites around the country, and a nationally representative sample of 2 400 South Africans were interviewed between September 13 and October 13, 2002.
Idasa said a sample of this size yielded overall estimates that were accurate to within about two percentage points.
The survey found that people’s declared intentions to vote ANC were over 50% in five provinces — Limpopo (72%), North West (66%), Free State (57%), Northern Cape, (54%), and Mpumalanga (51%).
”The political controversies raging in the Eastern Cape, the ANC’s traditional heartland, appear to have dented its image in that province; just 44% say they will vote ANC.”
ANC support was lowest in the three provinces that have had the most competitive party systems since 1994 — Gauteng (33%), Western Cape (32%), and KwaZulu-Natal (21%).
However, the ANC presently faced no serious competition in any of these provinces, Idasa said.
”Recent political developments have seriously hampered the clout of opposition parties. Now that the New National Party (NNP) has broken away from the Democratic Alliance (DA) there is no significant challenger to the ANC.”
The main impact of the recent floor-crossing controversy appeared to have been to hurt opposition parties in general, as voters seemed to say ”a plague on all their houses”.
Nationally, declared voting support for the DA now stood at five percent (down from nine percent), while three percent said they would vote for the NNP, or the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) — down from six and five percent respectively.
The Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), United Democratic Movement (UDM), Freedom Front (FF), and African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) were the choice of one percent each.
The ANC now led in voting intention in all nine provinces. In the Western Cape, 32% said they would vote ANC, 10% NNP, and nine percent DA.
In KwaZulu-Natal, 21% said ANC, 10% IFP, and four percent DA.
”However, it should be noted that opinion surveys have consistently overestimated ANC support and underestimated IFP support in that province since at least 1993,” Idasa said.
In his statement, Graham said of greatest concern and longer term importance was the evidence of alienation and disenchantment amongst voters.
Seventeen percent of those surveyed said they would not vote if an election were held tomorrow. Another 10% said they did not know who to vote for, and 13% refused to say whom they would vote for, he said.
It was especially notable that one third of voters in the Western Cape (32%) and KwaZulu-Natal (27%) maintained they would not vote — the two provinces where floor crossing had the greatest political impact.
”That 40% of voters nationally either won’t say, can’t say or won’t vote, is surprisingly high. That is the only real shift revealed by these figures,” Graham said. – Sapa