2019 ELECTIONS: Six Hot Buttons: Key moments in the election campaign By Ferial Haffajee ferialhaffajee
The ANC launched its manifesto early in January and other parties followed – starting a five-month campaign. At the time of writing, two polls put the ANC in the lead at between 58% and 61%, with the DA in second place at between 18% and 20% and the EFF in the third spot with just under 10% of the vote. A poll by the Institute for Race Relations is different. It predicts a drubbing for the ANC and DA and says the EFF will achieve the best growth.
One of the funniest was a March train trip to Pretoria. His effort to take to the tracks failed miserably when he got stuck on the train for three hours. It is, of course, par for the course for commuters, but Ramaphosa pronounced himself shocked. As he made first-hand contact with the life of ordinary South Africans, Ramaphosa used the phrase of being “shocked” a few times, which won him opprobrium from the commentariat, but which pollsters say works on the stumps.
The party put its candidate lists through the wringer of its selection guidelines and even then, it turned up names of candidates who are at the centre of the party’s State Capture era. A special national executive committee meeting was called, but it resolved only to refer the lists to the party’s Integrity Commission, where they still languish. The candidates are running.In the middle of the campaign, journalist Pieter-Louis Myburgh dropped his epic opus, an investigation into Magashule and his various crony networks. Magashule’s young guns in the provincial Youth League threatened to burn the book at a public bonfire at a Bloemfontein dumpsite.
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