Loyalty will play significant role in SA elections — study Jacob Zuma
Jacob Zuma

Jacob Zuma

Cape Town — Loyalty to a specific party is likely to be a major deciding factor when young urban South Africans go to the polls on May 7.
According to TNS Global’s first Omni study for 2014, President Jacob Zuma’s performance has declined considerably based on public opinion.About 71 percent of people taking part in the study agreed that loyalty to a specific party will play a significant role in their voting decision.

Young voters aged 18 to 24 are just as likely to vote based on loyalty, the study found.

In its finding TNS states that this could be because young people tend to hold the same political views as their parents.

Education also plays a role in that loyalty decreased as the level of education increases. Of the respondents with primary school education 76 percent agreed to vote based on loyalty, 72 percent with secondary school education and declining to 64 percent for those with tertiary education.

Loyalty based on race was also mentioned in the report with 75 percent of blacks feeling an obligation to a particular party, compared to 61 percent of whites.

As for the president’s track record, more than half (58 percent) of the participants felt that Zuma is not doing a good job. During the duration of the study it was found that his popularity based on doing a good job declined from 43 percent in August 2013 to 34 percent in February 2014.

Cyril Ramaphosa’s popularity was also under fire. He is almost as popular as he is unpopular: 38 percent thought he’d make a good president of the Republic, 31 percent agreed that he wouldn’t be good and 31 percent were undecided.

TNS South Africa is a marketing and social insights company.

Meanwhile, just over 75,000 applications for special votes have been approved so far, the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) said on Wednesday.

“The electoral commission reminds voters that the deadline for applications for special votes in this year’s national and provincial elections is tomorrow [Thursday],” the IEC said in a statement.

There were two categories of special votes — home visits and special voting at a registered voting station.

For a home visit election officials would visit voters who had successfully applied due to physical infirmity, disability, or pregnancy. These visits would be conducted on May 5 and 6.

Special voting at a registered voting station was for people who would not be in their voting district on election day. This voting would also take place on May 5 and 6 between 9am and 5pm.

The IEC said of the 75,000 special votes already approved, about 57,000 were for home visits and 17,500 for voting at voting stations.
Earlier, government urged those who still needed to register for a special vote to do so before the 5pm deadline yesterday.

“Government encourages the elderly and people with disabilities to submit their applications for special votes by the 17 of April,” acting Government Communications and Information System CEO Harold Maloka said in a statement.

“All registered South African voters are urged to exercise their democratic right to vote on the prescribed days.” — Sapa

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