Azra Hoosen | ah@radioislam.co.za
24 May 2024 | 11:00 CAT
2 min read

With just over a week until the May 29 elections, the latest eNCA poll shows the ANC leading with 43.4% of the vote, a two-point increase from two months ago. In other election news, ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula criticised Jacob Zuma and the MK Party, labelling the former president a sell-out and describing his party as a troubled organisation.

Support for South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) has risen significantly ahead of this month’s election, according to a tracking poll by the Social Research Foundation (SRF). The poll showed ANC support at 44.8% as of Friday, up from 37.7% a month earlier, suggesting the party may only need a small coalition partner or could even win a majority.

Despite speculation that the ANC would fall below 50% for the first time since Nelson Mandela’s presidency, the party’s intensive grassroots campaign appears to be bolstering its position. Former president Jacob Zuma’s endorsement of the uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party initially diverted support, but the ANC is now regaining momentum.

Gauteng MPL Fasiha Hassan has noted that the MK party has recently made statements suggesting they will incite social unrest if the political outcome does not favour them.
“This is completely unacceptable. Regardless of the outcome, no political party can say if we don’t get x, y or z, we are going to render the country ungovernable; that’s treasonous. We must be aware of parties that want to remove the Constitution and are attacking our democracy. That same constitution is what protects us,” she said.

Hassan explained that the formation of the MK party represents a victory for the renewal agenda within the ANC.
“It means that Zuma and his cronies and those on the corruption gravy train that we have been trying to remove do not have enough oxygen to breathe within the ANC, so as a result of that they created another space. It is not the worst thing; the people who have left are the ones who were disciplinarians and wouldn’t step aside, which was a cause for concern, but now, the renewal agenda can actually be a lot more of a suppression rate than it had before,” she said.

Hassan emphasizes that if every young person of voting age participates in this election, it could dramatically transform parliament and the legislature across all political parties. She highlights that, as the majority, young voters can significantly amplify their voices, a crucial element that has been missing from the political discourse until now.

“There have been people who have flitted in and out of the ANC, disengaged activists, and those who were disillusioned; but we had a particular campaign this time around to go back into our communities and talk to our people,” she said.

Some analysts believe the ANC could still achieve a majority, pointing out that phone polls often have significant flaws, such as underestimating ANC support in rural areas where many poorer voters do not have phones.

LISTEN to the full interview with Ml Junaid Kharsany and ANC’s Fasiha Hassan, here.