LETTER: Polls tell same story

Occasionally Jonny Steinberg bursts into print with something so wide of the mark that one needs to read it twice to be sure one hasn’t misread (“Devil is in the details in divisive predictions about election”, April 19).

“White” pollsters? Fake news? Really? Polls are deeply flawed, and not predictive inasmuch as they capture sentiment (and stated intent) at a moment in time. In Steinberg’s adopted country polls got Donald Trump’s support wrong from the get go. Even in this run-up to the GOP primaries few thought Trump could “do it again”.

However, in SA the polls tell an interesting and reasonably consistent story. Read together (I think seven or eight looking at the 2024 election) they all show, within the error of their data sets, that the ANC’s 2019 shoo-in dominance is gone. It will go below 50% any which way you read it.

The multiparty charter will attract meaningful support here and there, but not enough to form a government. The MK party will disrupt KwaZulu-Natal dramatically. The ANC’s metro bases continue to shrink, and the EFF has not made meaningful inroads into the urban cohort.

None of this is contested by anyone paying attention. After 30 years we are at the beginning of the end of ANC hegemony, and the start of a messier, coalition-dependent reality. The ANC could lose complete control of three provinces even if it holds onto the Union Buildings via a coalition partner.

It would be interesting to get Steinberg’s erudite take on these scenarios and what might influence what. “White” pollsters and fake news are, to coin Steinberg’s phrase, a bullshit story.

Martin Neethling
Via BusinessLIVE

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