GARETH VAN ONSELEN: 2019 will likely be the EFF’s election
With the ANC caught between a rock (the DA) and a hard place (the EFF), the hard place may well be its comfort zone
On the available evidence, there would seem to be one thing you can be certain enough about, ahead of May 8 and the 2019 election: the ANC will, once again, win a national majority. It will probably be a messy affair, and the lower the ANC’s final percentage (likely to fall below the 62% it managed in 2014) the higher the chances it will fail to secure 50% in Gauteng. It got 53% on the provincial ballot in that province in 2014 and any national decline will inevitably be mirrored in SA’s most populous urban centre. All of this is subject to the usual provisos of course: a scenario based on available evidence. Evidence also suggests the DA’s vote is fairly stable. It seems to fluctuate within a rough band between 20% and 24%. A good election and it will end near or above the top end of the band; a bad one, nearer the bottom. But, if the DA is able to grow, it will largely be by attrition. That is, incrementally growing its share of the electoral pool, election after election, by cons...
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