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South African election results: 2011 vs 2016 predictions

Staff Writer

 ·2 Aug 2016

Final election polls from Ipsos and eNCA paint the final picture of what the results of the 2016 municipal elections could be, based on the views of thousands of voters.

The polls have focused on three major metros in the country which are said to be the most hotly contested: City of Johannesburg, City of Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay.

Over the past 8 weeks, leading up to the election, the poll results showed a big swing in favour of the Democratic Alliance across all the metros, predicting an outcome where the party would win all three (though not with a majority vote).

In its final overall poll, the group has shown a more moderate result, where the DA would only take the lead in one metro – Nelson Mandela bay.

The final poll results reflect the general outcome predicted by other researchers such as Nomura, which predicted that the most likely outcome would be the DA only coming out on top in one metro.

The Ipsos and eNCA polling is vastly different from the 2011 municipal election results, predicting significant changes in the political landscape in these areas – mostly to the detriment of the ANC.

New entrant into the municipal race – the EFF – is expected to overtake all other parties for the position of third place in all metros covered.

The table below shows the predicted changes in the metros between 2011 and 2016.

This is the first municipal election being contested by the EFF, which is expected to dominate third postion in the 2016 prediction. In 2011, COPE,  Freedom Front Plus and the IFP secured the third highest amount of votes, as depicted.

According to eNCA, some 3,000 voters were recruited using RDD (Random Digit Dialling), representative of eligible voters in Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay.

Each week at least 1,500 of them were phoned for a five-minute interview. All interviews were conducted using CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews) with a representative sample of residents of the three metropolitan areas who have access to a cellphone.

With Ipsos, a total of 3,861 interviews were conducted from 17 June to 18 July with a representative sample of South Africans. The margin of error for this sample size is between 0.7 percent  and 1.6 percent.

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