Bad week at DA office for Mazzone as party sentiment takes a dip

Democratic Alliance (DA) chief whip Natasha Mazzone has usurped party leader John Steenhuisen as the head of drama on DA Twitter.

While Steenhuisen famously blocks anyone he doesn’t like on the social media platform, Mazzone has locked out the entire country. Her official account was there yesterday, gone today, and the party’s overall online ratings have declined over the past week, signalling potential warning signs to its campaign effort.

“The past 7 days have seen the DA become the biggest losers on sentiment,” says digital analyst Carmen Murray, who uses Meltwater analytics and several other online instruments to measure party performance online.

“The Phoenix poster debacle has become the dominant conversation piece and created a complete segue from issues that the party may be trying to punt in its campaign.”

The blue party made some gains on positive sentiment, moving from 5.5% last week to just over 7% today. Negative sentiment towards the DA has rocketed by close on 10% to 33.8% from 21% the week before.

“What this means is that there’s also a shift in the middle, the neutrals or undecideds, but the momentum is not in the right direction for the party,” says Murray.

“Leader John Steenhuisen has seen some growth on his personal Twitter account though, which could stand him in good stead if the trend continues.”

Political analyst Russel Crystal weighed in on this week’s results, saying he is not really surprised that the DA has lost ground.

“It’s about the posters, but not about the posters’ content,” he says.

“It’s about the internal party conflict publicly flaunted because of it.”

He adds that the takedown showed up any kind of opposition campaigning as the DA kowtowing to ANC demands.

“It didn’t play out too well for the party’s leadership either.”

ANC gaining in positive sentiment

Luthuli House is doing well. Positive sentiment has jumped from 6% to 9%, and negativity has dropped from close to 30% to a more palatable 24.7%.

“But there seems to be a reasonably large undecided community online and it would require a lot of sweat to get them to the polls in November and make their mark next to the green, black and yellow,” says Murray.

But the ruling party is also enjoying increased search engine activity, indicating a lot more interest from voters, she adds.

EFF showing the most stability

Julius Malema’s red berets are the most stable of the Big Three.

Positivity remains between 7-8%, while negativity towards the party has shrunk somewhat, now at 15% with a 1% gain on last week’s analysis.

“But it seems as if a lot of focus has moved offline for the EFF too,” says Murray, with conversation themes for the party logged including significant chatter about community meetings.

“Based on online conversations, it seems the party has hit the streets and is canvassing hard.”

Murray adds that the EFF’s large neutral or undecided segment holds great potential for the movement.

“The ANC is most likely out and about playing traditional identity politics, saying nothing new in terms of promises and stomping around their usual support base,” says Crystal.

“They are starting to concretise their support base and more than likely adding some effort to get voters out in numbers and to combat apathy.”

The EFF, Crystal says, are masters of street politics and are likely focusing their attention in a highly targeted manner right now.

“Their visible campaign is irrelevant but their power as an organisation that’s in the streets, the shebeens and other gathering places is undeniable. They are out there presenting themselves as a true black alternative to the ANC,” says Crystal, “something that the DA are failing to do as they have been too caught up in squabbling about the Phoenix posters that in fact had the correct message for their audience.”