Voting in the 2009 South African Elections: Did Public Policy Matter?

This research paper by Collette Schulz-Herzenberg of the Institute for Security Studies examines whether public policy influenced voting outcomes in the 2009 South African elections. The author argues that policy issues had a limited direct impact on voter decisions due to a significant disconnect between the priorities of the electorate and the focus of both media coverage and political party campaigns.

• Prior to the 2009 elections, South African voters identified socio-economic issues as their primary concerns, specifically unemployment, crime, and poverty. Despite these priorities, a majority of citizens believed the government performed poorly in managing these areas, with 71% rating the government's efforts to reduce crime as poor, 67% rating job creation as poor, and 56% rating economic management as poor.
• Media coverage before the April 2009 elections failed to align with voter priorities, focusing instead on personality and party politics. Only 12.7% of coverage was dedicated to policy issues, representing a decrease from 36% during the 2004 election. Poverty and unemployment received less than 1% of coverage each, while voter logistics (17.38%) was the most popular topic.
• Political party campaigns had limited influence on the electorate, as 49% of respondents reported they had not paid much attention to them. Furthermore, 51% of respondents always intended to vote for their chosen party, and 14% had decided before the campaign season began, meaning only approximately 15% made their decision during the campaign.
• Major opposition parties, including the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Congress of the People (COPE), focused their campaigns on corruption and stopping Jacob Zuma and the ANC majority rather than presenting their own pro-poor economic agendas. This strategy was largely ineffective because corruption was a low priority for the general electorate, ranking 7th in the public mind.
• The lack of quality policy information in the media and campaigns meant that long-term factors, such as party identification and partisan loyalties, were the primary drivers of voting decisions in 2009.

APA

Schulz-Herzenberg, C. (n.d.). Voting in the 2009 South African Elections: Did Public Policy Matter? Institute for Security Studies. https://issafrica.org/iss-today/voting-in-the-2009-south-african-elections-did-public-policy-matter

Chicago

Schulz-Herzenberg, Collette. Voting in the 2009 South African Elections: Did Public Policy Matter? Institute for Security Studies, n.d. https://issafrica.org/iss-today/voting-in-the-2009-south-african-elections-did-public-policy-matter.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Schulz-Herzenberg |first1=Collette |title=Voting in the 2009 South African Elections: Did Public Policy Matter? |publisher=Institute for Security Studies |url=https://issafrica.org/iss-today/voting-in-the-2009-south-african-elections-did-public-policy-matter |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{schulzherzenbergndvoting, author = {Schulz-Herzenberg, Collette}, title = {{Voting in the 2009 South African Elections: Did Public Policy Matter?}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, url = {https://issafrica.org/iss-today/voting-in-the-2009-south-african-elections-did-public-policy-matter}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }