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ELECTION ’24 - Alert No 6       28 May 2024

Final predictions….

Please note that I was one of the very first analysts to warn against taking at face value the plethora of opinion polls that flooded the South African political terrain since last year in the run-up to the elections on Wednesday due to the many discrepancies, variations, different methodologies, partisan linkages, etc. in these polls. It is a position to which many other analysts and the media have since latched on, and one that I still maintain. I have also shied away from predictions. For me, at best, rather than the numbers that these surveys presume to suggest for each party, their value lies in the trends that they may identify – the starkest such trend, e.g., being the trend showing that the ANC has steadily been losing support but with a discernible uptick in support as we got closer to this week and election day, and after the ANC had launched its final campaign thrust.

Another trend that was identified was the tight competition for control in the battleground provinces of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) and the fact that Jacob Zuma and his newly formed uMkhonto we Sizwe Party (MKP) would most likely be the great disruptor in KZN and possibly also at national level and in Gauteng. But the extraordinary high support levels being indicated for the start-up MKP, should be brought down somewhat when all votes across all provinces are considered. So, nonetheless, with the abovementioned cautionary approach still very much in mind, I have averaged out the poll predictions (for that is what they are despite their qualifying disclaimers to the contrary) of the most recent major polling companies to see where they stand in respect of the top 5 political parties at the national level just before we go to the polls tomorrow. In the second column below I have given my own guestimate of what might happen – but please don’t hold me to it as I am not a good gambler at all! This is just my gut feeling based on watching the trends.

(Figures below are based on a relatively high voter turnout of 66% - the lower the turnout the more it will benefit the ANC – a key variable on election day).

 

	Party	National Polls Average	My Prediction
1	African National Congress (ANC)	42.25%	46.80%
*	Multi-Party Charter (MPC) *Not a party	Not provided	34.20%
2	Democratic Alliance (DA)	21.30%	21.70%
3	uMkhonto we Sizwe Party (MKP)	12.00%	09.75%
4	Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF)	11.18%	10.90%
5	Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP)	03.60%	03.20%

 I am still inclined to think the ANC will not do as badly as many predict, and if the voter turnout is very low, the ANC may well hover around the 50% mark. Should it dip below 50% but remain around 47% or higher, the ANC's best-fit most likely coalition partner could well be the IFP, a party it has previously shared power with.

Stef Terblanche

Political Analyst