The ruling African National Congress (ANC) has lost a fifth of its support base since 2008 with the sharpest fall begin registered between November 2012 and November 2013. A new Ipsos survey, conducted before the death of former President Nelson Mandela, indicates that political uncertainty, leadership issues, the aftermath of the Marikana shootings, the issue around Nkandla, service delivery protests and the formation of new political parties are some of the reasons for this. Ipsos states that the poll cannot be seen as predictive of the 2014 elections. The survey found though that new political parties, such as the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and Agang benefitted from the move away from the ANC although the biggest change was seen in an increase of number of people who indicated they would not vote at all this year. Today, the ANC made its annual January 8 statement and launched it’s 2014 Election Manifesto and received a luke-warm response. Independent socio-political analyst Zweli Mncube said that the ANC’s January 8 Statement and election manifesto did not have a “wow” factor. He said as much as the ANC has had some “exceptional successes”, there have been failures too. Mncube said that as much as the plan is to focus on education, he feels more focus should be placed on skills development. Social media responded similarly with a lack of excitement. According to the Ipsos Pulse of the People survey, results of which have now been released, only two out of every 10 eligible voters (20%) are very interested in politics and elections, with a further 43% indicating they are somewhat interested. More than a third, 35%, said they were not interested in politics and elections.
The survey investigated different voter turn-out scenarios and found that a low voter turn-out would be to the befit of the ANC.
– By
