Although the African National Congress remains the dominant political party — and leads the popularity stakes in all nine provinces — its support has declined sharply while the number of people who will not vote in future elections has increased dramatically .
And there has been no ”seismic shift” in party support despite this being used to justify the defection laws. Instead an AfroBarometer survey on floor crossing shows high levels of voter alienation and disenchantment.
In addition, only one in 10 South Africans believe their elected public representatives act in their best interests or listen to them most of the time. A third say elected representatives have never acted in their interest.
These findings emerge from three AfroBarometer surveys — Political Party Support in South Africa: Trends Since 1994, a floor-crossing opinion poll and Democratic Governance in South Africa: The People’s View — released by the Institute for Democracy in South Africa ahead of next week’s ANC national conference in Stellenbosch where the party will take stock of its performance as ruling party and set its policies for the next five years.
While 42% of South Africans say they would vote for the ANC if an election were held tomorrow, two years ago 56% expressed that choice and in mid-1995 it was 64%. Support for the Democratic Alliance stands at 5% and the New National Party and Inkatha Freedom Party at 3% each. Others score 1%, according to the survey on party political support.
A major concern emerging from this survey is that one in five South Africans say they will not cast their vote, a dramatic increase from the 2% to 4% of past surveys. Fully one-third of voters in the Western Cape and 27% of KwaZulu-Natal voters hold this view. An increasing number of undecided voters appear to choose not to cast a vote at all.
The possibility of much reduced voter turnouts from 2004 is looming. The survey found that voting patterns closely correspond to party loyalties: ”Those who say they feel close to a party are virtually the ones who will vote for it.”
While this may be part of political normalisation, it also indicates voters are becoming more apathetic and dissatisfied voters see no legitimate alternative.
”One-party dominance becomes problematic when a governing party sees less and less need to respond to public opinion because it is assured of re-election … without the possi-bility of defeating the government, dissatisfied voters may come to focus their discontent not on the party in power, but on the democratic regime in general.”
Although it leads the pack, support for the ANC has declined significantly among black South Africans: from 79% in late 1994 to 55% in October this year.
This comes as the percentage of black respondents, who indicate they will not vote at all, has increased from 3% to 14%, and those who are undecided have gone from nil to 8% in the same period.
While the ANC remains the most popular political party among coloured voters, its support has halved from 32% in 1994 to 18% in 2002. After jostling with the NNP for top rank among Indian voters since 1994, the ANC has come out tops with 18% compared to 11% for the NNP and 10% for the DA.
Among white voters ANC support has risen from less than 1% in 1994 to 3% by this October.
The DA remains the most popular political party among white voters, but its support dropped from 48% to a mere 18% between July 2000 and October this year.
Much of the drop in the popularity of opposition parties can be attributed to the floor-crossing controversy. AfroBarometer co-founder Bob Mattes says the floor crossing was ”a smoking gun”; public perception of politicians was lowest in the Western Cape, which has been most affected by the defections.
The survey on popular views on governance revealed a surprise finding: only 32% of respondents — 38% of black South Africans — believe today’s government is more trustworthy than the apartheid regime was.
However, Mattes says much of this may be attributable to nostalgia — ”forgetting apartheid and remembering trains ran on time”. The finding is not yet cause for alarm as it comes with an overall increase in positivity about the current system of government — from 36% in 1995 to 54%. Views on where South Africa will be in 10 years are upbeat among 74% of respondents, a figure that notably includes an increase in white optimism from 24% in 1995 to 44% in October.
Mattes says that while the South African government gets a good rating internationally, its citizens give it very bad marks on a range of policies: 38% are critical of the government’s macro-economic policies, 19% of the narrowing of the income gap, 17% respectively of efforts to ensure everyone has sufficient food and price controls, 31% are very critical of the government’s stance on Zimbabwe, 29% of the government’s efforts to fight corruption, 23% of anti-crime initiatives and 9% of job creation.
While local government continues to fare badly, Limpopo Premier Ngoako Ramatlhodi has emerged as the most popular provincial leader with 74% support. The ANC has scored its highest support rating in Limpopo, with 72%.
In sharp contrast are the findings that 55% of Limpopo residents have difficulty accessing household services and 13% have experienced government corruption — the highest incidence in nine provinces.
Meanwhile, 51% of South Africans say President Thabo Mbeki does a good job and 45% are satisfied with Parliament’s performance, while local councillors only achieve the approval of 23% of respondents.
But performance does not necessarily match trust: only 37% trust the president and 31% trust Parliament.
What worries South Africans most
After unemployment and crime, poverty and HIV/Aids are the top concerns of South Africans, according to the results of an AfroBarometer public opinion poll released this week, reports Marianne Merten.
Poverty is now the third most pressing problem listed by 28% of respondents. And for the first time related concerns like orphans and street children are raised (by 3%), while 9% cite food as a key national problem, the October 2002 survey shows.
HIV/Aids was cited by 26%, placing it fourth on the list of the most pressing problems the government must address. This represents a radical increase from the less than 1% who thought it a problem just two years ago. HIV/Aids did not even feature before 1998.
Only 46% say the government is handling the problem ”fairly or very well”, the survey shows. This is in contrast to the positive evaluation of the government’s distribution of welfare payments (73%) and delivery of basic household services (60%).
However, the national consensus across racial lines is, and has been since October 1994, that the dominant problem is job creation. While 84% identified this as the most pressing issue for the government to address, only 9% say it is doing a fair job or very good job.
Similarly, while crime and security rank as the second most pressing problem, just 23% say the government is addressing the concern.
The AfroBarometer survey found that although crime remains high on the list, it has dropped from the 60% level indicated in a similar survey in August 2000. And racial differences emerged: it was cited by 67% of whites, 57% of Indians, 39% of coloureds but only 25% of black South Africans.
As poverty and HIV/Aids have pushed concerns over education and housing — cited respectively by 15% and 22% — down the list, public confidence in the government addressing these needs stands at 61% for education and 50% for housing.
Meanwhile, issues such as gender, social problems like alcoholism, religious and political violence and drought are seen as concerns by 1% or fewer of the respondents.