Unlike many of the smaller parties, the FF+ has not been losing votes over the past four elections. (David Harrison/M&G)
Freedom Front Plus (FF+) has climbed up to the top three most searched politics parties in the past 24 hours according to Google search trends.
The Mail & Guardian reported on Wednesday that Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane was the most searched for political leader but the FF+ has overtaken Maimane’s party in trending searches.
The other two political parties that are most searched for are the ANC and the Economic Freedom Fighters.
According to predictions on Thursday by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in partnership with the SABC, the FF+ could double the votes it won in the 2014 national elections. In 2014, the party won 0.9% of votes with a voter turnout of 73.48% but the CSIR predicts the party could win 2.86% of the vote nationally with a voter turnout of 64.89%.
Unlike many of the smaller parties, the FF+ has not been losing votes over the past four elections and although they went from nine to three seats in the 1999 election, the party has since been able to maintain four seats in the National Assembly.
Google search trends are compiled from data based on what South Africans have been searching for. More than 40 000 search queries every second are processed by the search engine.
Other search trends include the top questions on the ANC in the last 24 hours which are:
- What does ANC stand for?
- Why did Malema leave ANC?
- How old is the ANC?
- What has the ANC done for South Africa?
- How many votes for ANC?
The top five most searched for political leaders are:
- Julius Malema
- Cyril Ramaphosa
- Mmusi Maimane
- Vuyo Zungula
- Hlaudi Motsoeneng
The top ten questions relating to the elections in general are:
- Who won the election in South Africa?
- How many parties in 2019 election?
- How many votes for seat in Parliament?
- When will election results be available?
- When will the election results be announced?
- How are the elections going?
- Who is the president of South Africa?
- How many political parties in 2019 election?
- When does counting start election?
- Which party is leading with votes?