ANC will win next election – Shilowa

Former Gauteng premier Mbhazima Shilowa on Thursday shared his predictions on who would win the next elections. In a series of tweets on social media, Shilowa said the ANC would win.

The former premier said the ruling party’s victory would not depend on other parties’ disarray either, but will win because “its base for 2014 remains generally intact”.

Though some have argued the ANC’s results would be worse than what it accumulated in the 2016 elections, Shilowa said what happened in 2016 should not be used as an indication of what would happen in the next elections.

“Even in advanced democracies, voters punish the party in government in midterm elections but return back when faced with defeat to parties that they differ with ideologically,” he said.

The same could be said about the DA and EFF, he added.

“The play will be for new voters and the middle class. They’re there for all parties depending on the message. They’re more open to the ANC having no capacity to fulfil its historic mandate. Rest matters but like everywhere in the world, such birds fly back home,” he said.

On the DA, he said though it would be punished in the Western Cape for how they handled Patricia de Lille’s court cases, which eventually resulted in her starting her own party, the DA would still get the votes in the province.

“Issue is holding to new voters from 2016 and picking the new voters and the middle class.”

He said he could only give a full prediction on the EFF’s performance after its manifesto launch, though he was also “certain” the party would hold onto its base and get new voters.

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