The bulk of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress’ supporters are unemployed while 94% of them are black, according to the results of a Markinor poll. Similarly, nearly 80% of Inkatha Freedom Party supporters are jobless.
The poll shows that the ANC — which can be expected to garner six out of 10 votes nationwide — is strongest in Limpopo province, the North West and the Free State while its weakest areas are in the Western Cape — where there is substantial support for the official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) and the New National Party (NNP) — the Northern Cape — where there is still solid support for the NNP but growing DA and Independent Democrats support — and KwaZulu Natal — where the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) remains strong.
The poll, conducted among 3 500 respondents nationwide late last year and commissioned by the South African Broadcasting Corporation, also finds that the ANC support base is stronger among the youth, South Africans with lower education profiles and those with lower incomes.
The ANC’s footprint — according to Markinor — is best represented in non-metro areas, with half of its supporters being from villages and rural areas and only one in three residing in metropolitan areas. Unsurprising, the incidence of support among Xhosa speakers is “significantly higher”, it says than among Zulu speakers where the IFP has considerable sway.
Three quarters of ANC supporters are not employed either full-time or part-time.
The profile of DA supporters is “radically different”, the incidence of intended support is higher among older South Africans. The DA draws significant support from those with jobs and with matriculation or a tertiary education.
More than two-thirds of DA supporters are white and support is strong among higher income groups. Half of the DA’s support base is Afrikaans-speaking and only one in three state their home language as English — although the party has a strong English foundation having grown from the leafy suburb constituencies of Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg in the apartheid era into a broader movement today. About one in 10 voters will vote DA.
About one in 20 South Africans intends to vote for the IFP in the 2004 national elections. The profile of IFP supporters mirrors that of the ANC: almost four in every five (79%) of its supporters are jobless, more than nineteen out of twenty (95%) are black, and they tend toward having lower incomes and lower levels of education.
Nine out of ten IFP supporters live in KwaZulu-Natal and most of the remainder reside in Gauteng and Mpumalanga. The party has virtually no footprint in Limpopo, the North West Province, the Eastern and Northern Cape and the Free State, and two thirds of its supporters live in villages and rural areas.
Markinor says not surprisingly, nine out of ten IFP supporters speak Zulu as their home language.
The NNP shares the IFP’s proportion of intended votes. Its supporters are significantly more likely to be females (61% of NNP supporters are female), and a quarter (25%) are older than 50. One in three is white, and almost half are coloured (45%).
Support is most prevalent in metropolitan areas, accounting for about half of the NNP’s support (56%). Two out of every three NNP supporters speak Afrikaans as a home language. – I-Net Bridge