Most ANC voters believe ANC MPs must follow their conscience in no confidence vote - survey

More than half of ANC voters believe that ANC members of Parliament should follow their conscience rather than follow the instructions of the party in the upcoming vote of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma‚ according to SA’s first social media technology driven political sentiment survey.

The results of the ground-breaking survey conducted by local research house Ratepop show that 59.2% of ANC voters polled believed that MPs should vote as they see fit rather than follow the instructions of their party.

This is particularly significant given the no confidence vote scheduled in parliament on August‚ Ratepop said.

Asked whether Jacob Zuma remaining on as President until 2019 would make ANC voters more or less likely to vote for the ANC in the upcoming national elections‚ 46.1% of ANC voters said less likely‚ while 24.5% said more likely.

Asked who ANC voters would like to see as the next president of South Africa‚ Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa came out as clear favourite with 49.5% of ANC support‚ with Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma a distant second at 17.9%.

Surprisingly‚ third most popular leader among ANC supporters is EFF's Julius Malema with 5.2%‚ followed by Lindiwe Sisulu at 3.5% almost tied with DA leader Mmusi Maimane with 3.2% of ANC voter support. . Other presidential hopefuls‚ Baleka Mbete‚ Mathews Phosa and Zweli Mkhize barely register on the support scale among ANC voters.

As part of the survey‚ close to 2 000 randomly selected ANC voters‚ (members of the electorate who voted for the ANC in the 2016 Municipal Elections)‚ were asked a number of questions about leadership of the country‚ the parliamentary vote of no confidence and the role of President Jacob Zuma in the 2019 General Elections.

Ratepop CEO Socratis Avgitidis said: “We are the first company to use a Facebook messenger bot to conduct extensive political polling research. Voters were randomly sent SMS messages asking them to participate in a political survey without reward. More than 6 000 voters across the spectrum of South African political affiliation agreed to participate‚ and the results have been astonishing. Today we are delighted at being able to release the first set of results‚ which focuses on the views of ANC voters”.