Ipsos survey: Political party support pre-election

In the 2014 national election, as with the previous four national elections in the democratic South Africa, there is no doubt about which party will win the election. The ANC will return to parliament with an overwhelming majority of votes – and will most probably be the ruling party in eight of the nine provinces.

However, this is still the most hotly contested election since 1994 and three provinces are worth keeping a close eye on, namely the Western Cape, Gauteng and the Northern Cape. In Beeld of 2 May 2014, the DA predicted that they will win the provincial ballot in these provinces. In the same article, it was mentioned that the EFF are claiming victory in Gauteng.

Ipsos South Africa undertakes a Pulse of the People™ study every six months and keeps close tabs on the opinions of eligible voters. A randomly selected sample of South Africans of voting age (18+) were asked which party they would support if there were an election the next day1. Respondents then filled in their own choices on a “ballot paper” – making this a secret vote.

Registration figures

It is important to keep in mind that not all eligible voters are registered to vote. Interviews for the latest Ipsos Pulse of the People™ study was conducted from 20 February until 28 March 2014, thus after the last IEC registration weekend. It also included a question on whether the respondent interviewed was registered to vote.

Interestingly, approximately 35 million South Africans are eligible to vote (South African citizens of 18 years and older), of whom just more than 25 million have registered to vote. The IEC figures indicating registration by province were used to weight and project the dataset for registered voters. Thus the figures used in this press release are representative of all registered voters, unless stated differently.

If we look at the political party choices on the ballot papers of registered voters, one in every ten registered voters (10%) indicated that they do not know who to vote for and a further 2% said that they were not going to vote, in spite of being registered.

Turnout and interest in politics and elections

The proportion of registered voters who turn out to vote and voters who are still deciding as to which party to vote for can thus be very important factors in the election – making it difficult to predict. To get a firmer grip on possible voter turnout, Ipsos takes the results of two other questions into account, namely likelihood to vote and desire to vote.

How likely are you to vote in the election on 7 May?

How much do you want to vote in the election on 7 May?

% %Very likely to vote 47 Definitely want to vote 43Likely to vote 42 Want to vote 45Not really likely to vote 6 Do not really want to vote 7

1 The question wording is: “If there were national elections tomorrow, which political party or organisation would you vote for? Please indicate your choice of party on a national level as well as on a provincial level.”

Not at all likely to vote 3 Definitely do not want to vote 4Don’t know 2 Don’t know 1

Together with these findings, the interest of the electorate in politics and elections can also have an influence on voter turnout on Election Day. Three in every ten registered voters (29%) indicated that they are very interested in politics and elections (Six months ago this figure was 20%, but political campaigning always sparks more interest).

How interested are you in politics and elections?November 2013 % April 2014 %Not at all interested 35 Not at all interested 27Somewhat interested 43 Somewhat interested 43Very interested 20 Very interested 29Don’t know 2 Don’t know 1

To add to these findings, just more than a third of registered voters (35%) indicated that there is no party that represent their views.

On the basis of these results, a simple algorithm was put together and scenarios for high, medium and low voter turnout were developed.

Political leaders

Political leadership is often an important factor in deciding which party to vote for, especially if the voter is still considering a number of political parties. However, it has also been seen that party loyalty is more important than loyalty to a particular political leader.

In the Pulse of the People™ Ipsos asks respondents to give their opinion on a list of political leaders, some of them party leaders and others prominent people in different political parties or on the national scene. The question posed to respondents is “How many points out of ten would you give ……(political leader), where 10 means you are completely in favour of him/her and 0 means you are totally against him/her.”2

Leader Points out of 10Trevor Manuel 5.9Jacob Zuma 5.5Kgalema Motlanthe 5.4Cyril Ramaphosa 5.0Zwelinzima Vavi 4.7Helen Zille 4.0Masiuoa Lekota 3.4Patricia de Lille 3.4Lindiwe Mazibuko 3.3Mamphela Ramphele 3.2Julius Malema 3.1Bantu Holomisa 3.1

2 Please keep in mind that these are the results for all registered voters and not only for the members of a specific political party.2 of 8

Kenneth Meshoe 3.0Mangosuthu Buthelezi 2.9Pieter Mulder 2.8

Political party support

How does the political party support in the different scenarios look like?

Please note that for this analysis only the figures from the April 2014 Pulse of the People™ were taken into account.

Political Party support within different turnout scenarios

LOW VOTER TURNOUT

%

MODERATE VOTER TURNOUT

%

HIGH VOTER TURNOUT 2013

%

ACDP 1.1 0.9 0.9ANC 65.5 63.4 60.2COPE 1.7 1.2 1.0DA 20.7 22.9 23.3EFF 4.2 4.7 5.3IFP 1.9 1.9 2.3UDM 0.8 1.1 1.7OTHER PARTIES 4.1 3.9 5.3

*Only parties with measured support of more than 0,5% in April 2014 are included in this table.All sample surveys are subject to a margin of error, determined by sample size, response rate and sampling methodology used. The margin of error of the Ipsos Pulse of the People™ is 1,67 for the sample as a whole. To illustrate this, if the response rate is 50%, the “true answer” can be 1.67 percentage points higher or lower than the given results, in 95 out of every 100 cases.

Thus, the national election results will probably be as follows:

Probable percentage support

%

Margin of error – final result will be between…

ANC 63 61% and 65%DA 22 20% and 24%EFF 5 3% and 7%Other parties together 10 -

The provincial polls

For the first time since 1994, it is clear that a considerable proportion of voters will split their votes, i.e. vote for a different party on the national and on the provincial ballot. The smaller parties will

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stand to benefit from this and all the following parties will do better (overall, when all provincial votes are put together) than on the national ballot: AGANG SA; COPE;EFF; FF+; IFP;MF; PAC; UDCP;and NFP

When looking at the possible provincial results overleaf, it is very important to keep in mind that the study was done randomly and therefore there were more interviews done in more populous provinces. The margin of error is thus higher in provinces where a smaller number of interviews were conducted. The calculation of the different voter turnout scenarios also had an influence on the final number of interviews per province.

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Possible provincial party support amongst REGISTERED voters – in a moderate voter turnout scenario

POLITICAL PARTY

EASTERN CAPE

%

LIMPOPO

%

NORTH

WEST%

MPUMA

LANGA%

KZN

%

FREE STAT

E%

GAUTENG

%

NORTHERN CAPE

%

WESTERN CAPE

%

Margin of error at 50% response rate

6.6 9.4 9.4 13.3 5.9 9.4 4.2 13.3 7.7

ANC 70 82 78 73 73 62 58 62 24

DA 19 8 13 12 12 19 26 27 65

EFF 2 7 6 9 2 4 7 2 5

ACDP * 1 1 2 * 2 1 * 1

AGANG * * 2 1 * * 1 * 1

COPE 5 * 1 1 * 3 1 * 1

IFP * * * 1 11 * * * *

AZAPO 1 1 * * * 6 1 * *

FF+ 1 1 1 1 * 2 1 5 1

MF - - - - 1 - - - -

NFP - - - - 2 - - - -

PAC * * - - - - * 2 1

UCDP - - - - - - - 2 1

UDM 1 1 * - - - * - -

OTHER PARTY

1 * * * 1 2 4 * 1

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Profiles of the supporters of the three biggest political parties in South Africa

The question is often asked who the supporters of a specific political party are or, put slightly differently, how representative a particular political party is of the voters in the country.

In the following tables the profiles of the supporters of the ANC, DA and EFF are compared with the profile of South Africans eligible to vote. These three parties were chosen based on the support for them expressed in the April 2014 Ipsos poll.

TOTAL SA%

ANC%

DA%

EFF%

GENDERFemale 52 56 52 46Male 48 44 48 54

HOME LANGUAGEZulu 23 29 4 17Xhosa 15 19 2 21Afrikaans 14 3 54 4English 11 3 32Sepedi/Sesotho/ Setswana

28 37 7 50

Tsonga/Shangaan/ Venda/Swazi/Ndebele

9 9 1 8

WORKING STATUSFull-time 27 25 46 33Part-time 9 9 7 12Student/Retired/ Housewife

27 20 31 16

Unemployed 37 46 16 39

AGE18-24 28 15 8 3125-34 23 25 19 3735-49 26 30 33 2950+ 23 30 40 3

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TOTAL SA%

ANC%

DA%

EFF%

EDUCATIONNo formal education 2 3 * 2Some primary school/ Primary school completed

11 14 5 2

Some high school /Grade 12/ Matric completed

74 76 69 85

Tertiary 13 7 26 11

RECEIVE GOVERNMENT GRANT?Yes 27 38 20 21No 73 62 80 79.

POPULATION GROUPBlack 76 95 14 96White 12 5 56 4Coloured 9 25Indian 3 5

PROVINCEGauteng 23 23 27 33KwaZulu-Natal 21 22 10 8Eastern Cape 13 15 13 7Limpopo 11 12 3 16Western Cape 10 3 31 13Mpumalanga 7 9 3 8North West 7 8 5 8Free State 6 6 5 6Northern Cape 2 2 3 1

COMMUNITY SIZEMetropolitan 36 31 52 40City/ Large and Small Towns/ Villages/Rural

64 69 48 60

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Technical detail:

A total of 3,730 personal face-to-face interviews were conducted with randomly selected adult South Africans. The interviews were done in the homes and home languages of respondents. Trained quantitative fieldworkers from all population groups were responsible for the interviewing, which took place from 20 February to 28 March 2014. This methodology ensured that the results are representative of the views of the universe and that findings can be weighted and projected to the universe – i.e. South Africans 18 years and older.

Interviews were done using CAPI (Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing) and all results were collated and analysed in an aggregate format to protect the identity and confidentiality of respondents.

All sample surveys are subject to a margin of error, determined by sample size, sampling methodology and response rate. The sample error for the sample as a whole at a 95% confidence level is a maximum of 1,67%. When analysing the results for smaller parties in particular on an individual party basis the margin of error will be higher.

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