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Google releases top trending searches for SA elections

Mich Atagana
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Google has released a list of top trending searches related to SA 2019 general elections. The search engine collected data through its analytics website, Google Trends.

Head of Communications and Public Affairs at Google South Africa, Mich Atagana spoke to SABC on Thursday on the top trending searches.

Atagana says at the beginning of the year, searches included ‘when the elections would be held’. “Now post-election, people are looking for results. They want to know who won already.”

“Yesterday I was tracking the trends every hour  and it was interesting to see how it kept changing. We saw a lot of queries around the EFF mostly throughout the day yesterday. Mmusi Maimane as well – a lot of people were searching. Interestingly enough quite a number of people were searching for the ACDP, trying to find more information.

“In the case of Julius Malema, people wanted to know why he left the African National Congress (ANC) and were also interested in his wife.”

Atagana says they noted that the top searches were also about voting stations.

“People looking for information on where to go for vote, closest voting stations to them and if they could vote at any voting station – seeing that the IEC changed the rules for the first time this year.”

According to Google Trends, the top candidates searched for were Julius at number one, Ramaphosa at number two, Maimane at number three and Vuyo Zungula of African Transformation Movement (ATM) at number four.

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