ANC loses elite voters, but 'likely to get 50% of the vote' (despite delivery failures across the board)

However, despite these concerns, he noted that "the ANC’s strongest support base is largely in the lower structures of society - poor, rural, semi-literate, which constitute about 48% of the population". -Sowetan.co.za

NVDL: I believe the ANC's last stand will be following this election. Question is, will they try to seize power as it whittles away. Will the ANC become ZANU-PF as its power base diminishes? In other words, will South Africva turn out to be a true democracy after all, or another sham African democracy (in name only).

clipped from www.sowetan.co.za Collette Herzenberg, principal researcher at Idasa, said the opinion poll was surprising in that it was not expected that Cope would have made such inroads this early on, especially since Gauteng has been regarded as an ANC stronghold. Herzenberg said while in the past, voters chose to withdraw from the elections rather than to switch their votes to another party to show dissatisfaction with the ANC, this time around the indication is that people are seeing Cope as a more credible opposition to the ANC because it is seen as more racially inclusive than other opposition parties and also that the Cope leadership is seen as relatively untainted by corruption and scandal. "The ANC is not likely to get less than 50% in the election," Herzenberg added, "It may take a knock regionally rather than overall. It will depend on how smart the parties rally voters in the run-up to the elections".