ANC SUPPORT
STEVEN FRIEDMAN: Rural by-election results puncture voter pattern myths
The myth that there is a pecking order for voters was never true, but now it is beginning to seem ridiculous
Yet another political myth is coming apart at the seams as the ANC faces a meltdown at the polls in provinces that host former apartheid Bantustans. The myth in question claims that there is a pecking order for voters: people in the suburbs cast a rational vote; those in townships and shack settlements are more likely to vote, without thought, for the same party every time; and those in rural areas that once housed Bantustans are unthinking ANC voting fodder. It was never true – now it is beginning to seem ridiculous. As this column has pointed out before, most suburban voters support the DA whether or not it governs well. But black voters in the cities, once the butt of crude racial labels because they voted ANC, have been deserting it in droves. Now rural voters are doing the same. In by-elections last week, the ANC suffered disasters in wards in the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and the North West, losing between 22 and 29 percentage points in each. These are not isolated results. In ...
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