Political Party Support

The African National Congress (ANC) remains the strongest political party in the country, although their support seems to have decreased since the 2009 general election. With the Local Government elections taking place on Wednesday (18 May), the issue of party support is getting a lot of attention. The ANC receives the majority of support among all South Africans 18 years and older, registered voters and likely voters, followed by the DA and then the IFP.

These results are from a special pre-election Socio-Political Trends survey conducted by Ipsos Markinor.

Industry best practice demands that in the run-up to an election and particularly once an election campaign season starts, determining voter preferences or party support can only be done accurately among respondents who are likely to vote in the elections. Since more respondents say that they are likely to vote than what do vote in reality, it is common practice to use more than one filter question to establish whether a person is likely to vote or not. Ipsos Markinor employed the following filtering procedure to obtain the base of likely voters interviewed in the survey:

The respondent must have been 18 years or older

The interviewers made sure the respondent had a valid bar-coded, South African ID document

The respondent must have been registered to vote in the upcoming elections.

The respondent must have indicated that he or she is likely to vote

The respondent must have indicated that he or she wants to vote in the upcoming elections

Although a total of 3 375 respondents, representative of the adult (18+) population of South Africa (thus all eligible to vote) were interviewed from mid-April 2011, the subset of this sample termed the "likely voter" is used to analyse political party support. A projected total of 24,123 million voters indicated that they are registered to vote, of these 19,778 million also indicated that they are likely to vote and want to vote.

The sample size of this "likely voter" subset was n=2050 and is representative of the likely voter universe in South Africa, which is more reflective of possible voter turnout come the election.

The interviews were conducted face-to-face, in the homes of the respondents and in the language of their choice. Results were weighted and projected to this universe.

When asking about preference for a political party, the question was phrased as: "If there were Local Government elections tomorrow, which political party or organisation would you vote for?"

Respondents are then handed a ballot paper and asked to draw a cross next to their party of choice. This ballot paper contains the names of the biggest political parties in the country (as seen in previous surveys), their logos and acronyms.

There is also space to write in another party name or other comments. The respondents are also permitted to spoil their ballot, which further simulates an actual election. Respondents are then required to place their completed ballot sheet in an envelope and hand it back to the interviewer, which ensures respondent anonymity. The results that follow are based on this ballot procedure.

When doing a national survey it is obviously not possible to predict accurately the number of seats that a party will win or the likely winner in each municipality in the country.

Political Party Support

If there were Local Government elections tomorrow, which political party would you vote for?

Statement issued by Mari Harris Director & Political Analyst, Ipsos-Markinor, May 16 2011

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