South African Voter Trends & Election Campaigns: 1994-2006

This briefing summarizes a seminar presented by the Institute for Security Studies' Corruption and Governance Programme regarding South African voter behavior and election campaigns from 1994 to 2006, ahead of the April 2009 elections.

• Analysis of voter activity between 1994 and 2008 indicates that despite a surface appearance of electoral stability, there have been changes in voter registration, turnout, and party identification, particularly regarding the ANC electorate.
• Voter choice in South Africa is primarily driven by party images and sociological factors, although performance evaluations are becoming more significant over time. Cognitive awareness has a minimal impact on voter behavior, though it indirectly influences choice by highlighting different information.
• Public campaigning in South Africa is characterized by aggressive, negative, and derogatory verbal attacks between parties, which tends to obscure the actual content of political messages and increases public distrust and cynicism toward voting processes.
• There is a prevailing consensus among analysts that South African electoral politics are predictable due to the fragmentation of the opposition and the dominance of the ANC, with race viewed as a primary driver of voter behavior, often rendering government performance irrelevant to election outcomes.

APA

Institute for Security Studies (2009). South African Voter Trends & Election Campaigns: 1994-2006. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/ELECTBRF.PDF

Chicago

Institute for Security Studies. South African Voter Trends & Election Campaigns: 1994-2006. 2009. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/ELECTBRF.PDF.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Institute for Security Studies |title=South African Voter Trends & Election Campaigns: 1994-2006 |date=19 March 2009 |url=https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/ELECTBRF.PDF |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{instituteforsecuritystudies2009south, author = {{Institute for Security Studies}}, title = {{South African Voter Trends \& Election Campaigns: 1994-2006}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {2009}, month = mar, url = {https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/ELECTBRF.PDF}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }