A national survey of voters conducted on behalf of The Brenthurst Foundation has found that the ANC’s support has fallen to 39%, making a coalition government highly likely after the general election on 29 May.

The biggest gainers were the DA, which rose to 27% from 23% in October and Jacob Zuma’s MK party, which has 13% of the vote, making it the third-largest party, with the EFF falling from 17% in October to just 10%.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Elections 2024

With 33% of the vote, the Multi-Party Charter (MPC) coalition (DA, IFP, ActionSA, ACDP and FF+, among others) is just 6% behind the ANC.

Voters are unhappy with governance, with some 80% saying the country is “going in the wrong direction” and the opposition-governed Western Cape and City of Cape Town ranked as the best-governed areas of SA by some margin.

Voters also appear to have been alienated by the ANC’s foreign policy agenda, which has alienated traditional allies in the West as the party indulges Russia, China and Iran.

Some 43% of voters believe that South Africa should align itself with the West and other democratic nations, with 22% saying it should align itself with Africa and only 19% saying it should align itself with BRICS, suggesting that the ANC’s decision to move into the BRICS camp may be costing it votes.

More than 50% of voters said the ANC’s policy on the Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Hamas conflicts would not affect the way they voted. But 24% of voters said they were “less likely” to vote for the ANC as a result of its policy on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, while 23% of voters said they were “less likely” to vote for the ANC over its stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

In Gauteng, the DA has risen to 32% (24% in October) and the ANC has fallen to 34% (down from 37% in October). The MPC coalition has 38% of the vote. A coalition government will run this province.

In KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma’s MK party is set to be the largest party, with 25% of the vote. The ANC (20%), DA (19%) and the IFP (19%) are running neck-and-neck. The aggregated vote for the MPC is 39%. A coalition government will run this province.

In the Western Cape, the DA retains a majority with 53% (down from 56% in October) while the ANC has risen sharply to 35% from 22% in October.

Voters cited the biggest issues facing the country as:

• Unemployment (28%);
• Corruption (27%);
• Load shedding (17%); and
• Weak leadership (12%).

Weak leadership overtook crime (11%) as the fourth most pressing issue.

More than half of voters blame “the ANC government of the last three decades” for South Africa’s problems, with 11% saying apartheid was to blame.

Entrepreneurship

Voters are strongly in favour of entrepreneurship, with 39% saying the best way to put more money in people’s pockets was by “making it easier to start small businesses”. A further 25% said “reducing taxes”, while 20% said “increasing social grants” and 10% said “decreasing the cost of the civil service” would make South Africans richer.

Some 42% said social grant payments should be increased. Asked how this should be funded, 51% said by “spending less on civil servants” and 22% said by increasing taxes.

Asked how the government could decrease the cost of the civil service, 45% said by reducing the size of the civil service by 10% or more. A further 35% said by “cutting civil service salaries and perks”.

Voters were asked who they rated favourably and who they rated unfavourably. The overall favourability score was obtained by subtracting unfavourability from favourability.

Cyril Ramaphosa (+6%) and John Steenhuisen (-6%) had the best overall net favourability rating, followed by the IFP’s Velenkosini Hlabisa (-12%), with Zuma having the worst ranking at -31% and Julius Malema close behind with -29%.

The DA enjoyed the highest overall net favourability ranking for political parties (4%), with the ANC second (-4%). The least favourable was the FF+ (-31%), with the IFP and the EFF scoring -30%.

With a coalition future more likely than ever, 76% of voters said they would be happy for a coalition to govern South Africa, up from 74% in October.

Asked about which coalitions they favoured, 29% said the Multi-Party Charter, 25% said an ANC-DA coalition and 24% said an ANC-EFF coalition.

Some 26% of South Africans said they were more likely to vote for an opposition party following the launch of the MPC in August last year.

As electioneering ramps up for the 29 May poll, in the first public survey conducted since the launch of the MK Party, the Brenthurst findings show that South Africans prefer a coalition government located towards the centre of politics rather than the left.

Widespread dissatisfaction with ANC governance and policy direction increasingly trumps any legacy loyalty to the liberation movement, where voters are now making decisions based less on nostalgia than on the ruling party’s recent record of rule. DM 

Greg Mills and Ray Hartley are with The Brenthurst Foundation