Voters are more likely to vote for the MYANC led by CyrilRamaphosa than they were when Jacob Zuma led the party, writes Leila Patel. Elections2019 MzansiVotes
The latest research into the voting preferences of South Africans finds that trust in the country’s president is the single most important predictor of the potential party choices at the ballot. If voting behaviour follows suit this could be the key to understanding the success of the African National Congress on election day – May 8.
To understand what the influence of Ramaphosa’s presidency is likely to be in the upcoming elections, researchers from the Centre for Social Development in Africa compared the most recent survey results with those of an earlier survey conducted during Zuma’s presidency. Trust in the presidency under Zuma was at 26%. This time round that number had gone up to 55% – 29 percentage points higher than under Zuma. The study was done based on a nationally representative sample of 3 431 respondents.
These findings echo other recently released studies and polls which predict that the ANC is likely to win the upcoming general election. Our first survey in 2017 was conducted at the height of the leadership contest in the ANC. At that time party loyalty wasn’t found to be a predictor of voter choice. But it emerged as a predictor in the 2018 survey.
Given this, it’s likely that trust in Ramaphosa’s leadership may be based on the respondents’ favourable perceptions of his personal attributes as a leader such as his personal integrity, his knowledge and skills and experience. Other factors that might have worked in his favour include the establishment of commissions of enquiry to investigate corruption. For some voters, these factors will trump their concerns about corruption.
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