Ipsos Poll: Voters uncertain pre-2019
According to indications, ANC support in South Africa is shrinking: In the General Election in 2014, the ANC won 62% of the votes and in the Local Government Elections (2016), 54% of votes were cast for the party.
31 August 2017
Indications from public opinion surveys show that this support can be even lower and in May 2017 less than half (47%) of South Africans indicated that they would vote for the ANC, if there were an election the next day.
This figure should, however, not be regarded as a prediction of the 2019 General Election – it is simply too long before the time to start making predictions. Predicting or even speculating about the outcome of an election is infinitely more complicated than just considering the results of a nationally representative opinion poll.
Another interesting phenomenon is that of voter apathy: at the time of the Local Government Elections last year 26,3 million of the 36,8 million South Africans eligible to vote were registered with the IEC (Independent Electoral Commission) as voters. But only 15,3 million turned out to vote. Thus, a minority of eligible voters, i.e. 41,6% made the choices for the whole population with regard to local authorities.