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Jacob Zuma

JOHANNESBURG. — Pollsters Ipsos have predicted that South Africa’s ruling ANC will win another landslide victory in Wednesday’s general election, handing Jacob Zuma another presidential term.
The firm yesterday predicted that the African National Congress, which has won every general election in South Africa’s 20 years of democracy, will garner around 63 percent of the vote.

While comprehensive that would be just short of the two thirds majority needed to change the country’s constitution and a slight drop from the 65.9 percent won in 2009.

“There is no doubt about which party will win the election,” Ipsos said, releasing its final poll before the May 7 vote.
“However, this is still the most hotly contested election since 1994.”

Ipsos — which polled 3 730 people in February and March — said that in some provinces the ANC would see its lead eroded.
Ipsos predicted the opposition Democratic Alliance would get 22 percent of the vote, up nearly six percentage points from the last election and would retain control of the Western Cape, which includes Cape Town.

The party is also seen doing well in Gauteng — which includes Johannesburg and Pretoria — and the Northern Cape getting more than 25 percent in each.
Meanwhile, authorities in Pretoria have reversed a decision to ban firebrand opposition politician Julius Malema from holding his final pre-election rally in the South African capital. The city’s authorities yesterday said Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) May 4 rally had now complied “fully” with the city by-laws and that planned maintenance at the stadium venue would be delayed.

“We have postponed the pitch maintenance by a week,” city spokesman Blessing Manale said.
He said the city will bear the cost of keeping the landscapers idle for that week because it’s “worth less than the stigma and propaganda of the EFF that the city is repressive.”

Malema and his comrades had suggested the initial decision to block them from the stadium had been politically-motivated.
Malema launched the EFF last year after he was expelled from the ruling African National Congress for criticising its leadership.

In under a year of its formation, the EFF has seen its support grow considerably amid mounting anger over ANC corruption and a failure to create jobs. — AFP.