‘Gauteng up for grabs at polls’

Johannesburg - The latest election poll by the SA Institute for Race Relations (IRR) has indicated that while the ANC was set to win the national elections, Gauteng province was up for grabs as the party was unlikely to gain a majority vote there in the May general elections.

The IRR on Wednesday released the first set of results from the quarterly poll it conducted between February 12 and 26 into the electoral landscape.

IRR head of politics and governance Gareth van Onselen said the national sample was comprised of 1611 demographically representative and registered voters, supplemented by two sub-samples of 502 and 405 registered voters for Gauteng and the Western Cape respectively.

According to Van Onselen, the poll findings have placed the ANC at 41% in Gauteng, down from the 53.6% in the 2014 general elections, while it stands at 54.7% nationally, down from 62.1%.

“The ANC’s general decline from 2014 can be almost exclusively attributed to the EFF. The ANC and the EFF are locked in a battle for between 5% and 10% of alienated black ANC voters,” Van Onselen said.

The IRR has projected the EFF to show the biggest growth in terms of electoral support in Gauteng and nationally, where its projected support is at 12.2%, up from 6.3% in 2014.

“The backbone of the EFF’s national support is to be found in Gauteng,” Van Onselen said.

Van Onselen said the province was set to be governed through a coalition.

“Even on a lower turnout scenario, the ANC fails to get to 50%,” he said.

According to the poll, the DA is set to secure 32.4%, up from 30.8% in 2014 in Gauteng, while its national projection stands at 21.8%, down from 22.2% in 2014.

Political Bureau