With almost 40% of votes counted, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is predicting the biggest loss of support for the ANC since the dawn of democracy.
In partnership with the SABC, the CSIR has applied its prediction model to the current vote patterns and is expecting the governing party to emerge with a solid majority of 57.4% – though this would represent a 4.8 percentage point decline from the 2014 election.
The model also does not see growth for the DA, which is expected to drop slightly from 22.0% of the vote to 21.6% in 2019 – while the EFF is expect to achieve 9.5%, in line with several other pre-election poll snapshots.
Looking at all the pre-election polls published in 2019 ahead of the vote, the CSIR’s prediction is most in-line with outcomes expected by investors in the Intellidex market poll.
Most polls showed a drop in support for the ANC and the DA, with the EFF gaining votes.
By 13h00, over 5.5 million votes had been counted, with just under 40% of voting stations results in.
The ANC is sitting with 56.1%, followed by the DA with 24.4% and the EFF with 9.0% of the vote.
The Freedom Front Plus has emerged as a surprising gainer in the election thus far, sitting with 3% of the national vote, and the IFP trailing behind at 1.8%.
Gauteng
Many election polls and analyses pegged Gauteng as the most hotly contested province in the election, with groups like the Institute for Race Relations pointing to a very real possibility that the ANC may lose its majority in the province.
The CSIR predicts that the ANC will slip just under 50%, with the DA getting 28.7% of the vote. It also expects the EFF to get close to 14%.
In Gauteng, over 1 million votes have been counted thus far (representing only 28% of the voting stations), but the ANC is currently maintaining its majority in the province at 52.9%.
The DA follows with 25.2% and the EFF is at 13%.
The CSIR noted that Gauteng and KwaZulu Natal are usually last to have the full vote counted, due to their large populations, so many fluctuations are expected over the course of counting.
Source: BusinessTech
