On the eve of the NASREC conference

A total of 69% of eligible voters indicated that they are registered to vote and of this group, 45% drew a cross next to the name of the ANC; 16% chose the DA and 13% the EFF¹.   The fourth biggest party in the country, the IFP, would have scored 4% if the election were held the day after the interviewing was conducted. It is quite clear that the ANC will still be the biggest political party in the country after the 2024 national election.

Although some eligible voters have indicated that they still intend to register before the next election in 2024, the IEC and political parties will have their work cut out for them to inspire people to register, as 45% of eligible voters have said that currently there is no political party representing their views. Moreover, 43% of South Africans older than 18 are just not interested in politics and elections.

For the ANC, the trials and tribulations of Eskom has brought an additional complication and two-thirds (65%) of eligible voters think that “Loadshedding by Eskom will have a negative influence on support for the ANC” and 45% are saying that they will “consider not voting in future, as a result of the regular loadshedding by Eskom.”  

The focus of the NEC conference will be on the all-important leadership elections of the ANC, and Ipsos has probed the level of support for political leaders.  At this stage it is only relevant in which way ANC delegates will vote, but we can share the opinions of the broader group of South Africans who have indicated that they will vote ANC in 2024:

The opinions were also tested about two prominent members from the RET-faction of the ANC: Zweli Mkize rating 4.6 and Ace Magashule rating 3.9 out of 10.

Regardless of the outcome at NASREC, South Africans are despondent about the direction in which the country is moving, and only 14% say that the country is going in the right direction, while 68% say the country is going in the wrong direction. (18% have indicated that they either don’t know or are uncertain about this issue.)  If we only look at ANC supporters, the picture is not much different with one in five (20%) agreeing that the country is going in the right direction and almost two-thirds (64%) expressing the opinion that we are going in the wrong direction – with 16% who do not know or who are uncertain.

¹ Ipsos uses an imitation “secret ballot” in our face-to-face political polls.

For more information on this news release, please contact:

Mari Harris
Ipsos Sub-Sahara Africa Knowledge Director: Public Affairs
[email protected]

Technical Detail

• A total of 3,513 personal face-to-face interviews were conducted with South Africans, 18 years and older from 26 October to 28 November 2022.
• A multistage randomly stratified sampling approach was used.
• The Margin of Error (depending on sample size, response rate and sampling methodology used) on this sample is between 0.5 and 1.67 percentage points on a 95% confidence level.
• The results are weighted and projected to the adult South African population and are representative of the views of this universe.