Reports

This report examines the volatility in the final week of the Foundation's South African election tracking polls. Towards the final days of a tracking poll it should be possible to see the trendlines flatten out as political opinion crystallizes immediately before an election. However, towards the late stages of this tracking poll that is not happening. The reason for this is that an unprecedented degree of voter uncertainty about which party to support, as the ANC fractures, is causing a small share of voters to move back and forth between the ANC, EFF, MK and also the DA. Two significant events occurred over the past 10 days which appear to have particularly animated this trend. The first was the signing of the draft NHI legislation into law on 15 May. The ANC greatly miscalculated here in assuming that the signing would be read as a statement of social solidarity. However, given that several million middle and aspirant middle-class people make use of private medical care both via insurance products they purchase as well as via out-of-pocket expenditure, the announcement was broadly interpreted as an attack on middle and aspirant middle-class standards of living. This is a highly registered constituency and one in which the ANC was already particularly vulnerable to shedding support. In addition, there is scant evidence that the promise of a nationalised public healthcare service animates voting constituencies in lower socio-economic strata. The second event was the constitutional court ruling against former President Jacob Zuma on 20 May. The strength of Mr Zuma's MK party arises chiefly from the perception of his persecution. Mr Zuma has positioned himself as a fallen hero who is being persecuted by a distant and aloof ANC that has long neglected and even forgotten about core bands of its erstwhile supporters. The finding of the court that he was unfit to stand for parliament provided new impetus for this perception. The combination of these two events drove ANC support down, bucking the trend of a clear upward drift in ANC support of the previous 3 weeks, as both MK and the DA saw their support levels lift.

This report provides a daily track of the political state of play in South Africa's provinces of Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape in the lead up to the May 29 election. The baseline of the tracking poll is a survey of 1 835 demographically and geographically representative registered voters conducted by the Foundation during April of 2024. Every day 300 new participants are surveyed and the 300 oldest participants are removed from the survey. By doing so a daily moving average of 1 800 voters, that is refreshed every 6 days, is created. The data in the report is not a forecast of the May 29 election result, but rather a snapshot of the daily current position. Users of this report should be aware that towards the final days of a tracking poll it should be possible to see the trendlines flatten out as political opinion crystallizes immediately before an election. However, towards the late stages of this tracking poll that is not happening. The reason for this is that an unprecedented degree of voter uncertainty about which party to support, as the ANC fractures, is causing a smallshare of voters to move back and forth between the ANC, EFF, MK and also the DA. It is unlikely that this volatility will settle before the election. Users of this report should be further aware that a margin of error of just over 4% applies to the data in this report. What that means is that if the report estimates support for a party to be at a level of X, the level of support could be 4 or so percentage points above or below X. Between the volatility of voter decision making and margin of error, report users should be circumspect about making precise political predictions about the result of the May 29 election.

This report provides a daily track of the national political state of play in South Africa in the lead up to the May 29 election. The baseline of the tracking poll is a survey of 1 835 demographically and geographically representative registered voters conducted by the Foundation during April of 2024. Every day 300 new participants are surveyed and the 300 oldest participants are removed from the survey. By doing so a daily moving average of 1 800 voters, that is refreshed every 6 days, is created. The data in the report is not a forecast of the May 29 election result, but rather a snapshot of the daily current position. Users of this report should be aware that towards the final days of a tracking poll it should be possible to see the trendlines flatten out as political opinion crystallizes immediately before an election. However, towards the late stages of this tracking poll that is not happening. The reason for this is that an unprecedented degree of voter uncertainty about which party to support, as the ANC fractures, is causing a small share of voters to move back and forth between the ANC, EFF, MK and also the DA. It is unlikely that this volatility will settle before the election. Users of this report should be further aware that a margin of error of just over 2% applies to the data in this report. What that means is that if the report estimates support for a party to be at a level of X, the level of support could be 2 or so percentage points above or below X. Between the volatility of voter decision making and margin of error, report users should be circumspect about making precise political predictions about the result of the May 29 election.

This report investigates which political parties do registered South African voters think are trustworthy to make a national coalition work. The report is based on a survey of 1 835 demographically and geographically representative registered voters conducted by the Foundation during April of 2024. That survey had a margin of error of 2.2%. Totals may not add up to 100% where participants were undecided or unable to answer a question.

This report investigates support amongst registered voters towards policy positions on federalism, taxes and energy. It is the fourth of four reports that examine support amongst registered South African voters towards various policy reforms that could be pursued by a future coalition government. The report is based on a survey of 1 835 demographically and geographically representative registered voters conducted by the Foundation during April of 2024. That survey had a margin of error of 2.2%. The way in which support or opposition to potential policies was tested was by putting a series of statements about opposing policies to survey respondents. The respondents were asked to say which of the opposing statements they agreed with and how strongly they agreed or disagreed.

This report investigates support amongst registered voters towards varying foreign policy positions. It is the third of four reports that examine support amongst registered South African voters towards various policies that could be pursued by a future coalition government. The report is based on a survey of 1 835 demographically and geographically representative registered voters conducted by the Foundation during April of 2024. That survey had a margin of error of 2.2%. The way in which support or opposition to potential policies was tested was by putting a series of statements about opposing policies to survey respondents. The respondents were asked to say which of the opposing statements they agreed with and how strongly they agreed or disagreed.

This report investigates support amongst registered voters towards nationalisation of the health insurance, pension and school systems. It is the second of four reports that examine support amongst registered South African voters towards various policies that could be pursued by a future coalition government. The report is based on a survey of 1 835 demographically and geographically representative registered voters conducted by the Foundation during April of 2024. That survey had a margin of error of 2.2%. The way in which support or opposition to potential policy reforms was tested was by putting a series of statements about opposing policy reforms to survey respondents. The respondents were asked to say which of the opposing statements they agreed with and how strongly they agreed or disagreed.

This report investigates the support amongst registered voters towards race-based hiring, procurement and economic policies. It is the first of four reports that examine support or opposition to various policy reforms that a future South African coalition government might adopt. The report is based on a survey of 1 835 demographically and geographically representative registered voters conducted by the Foundation during April of 2024. That survey had a margin of error of 2.2%. The way in which support or opposition to potential policy reforms was tested was by putting a series of statements about opposing policy reforms to survey respondents. The respondents were asked to say which of the opposing statements they agreed with and how strongly they agreed or disagreed.

This report examines the perceptions of registered South African voters towards the Multi-Party Charter* and specifically the prospects for the success of that charter in government. The report is based on a survey of 1 835 demographically and geographically representative registered voters conducted by the Foundation during April of 2024. That survey had a margin of error of 2.2%.