Suchergebnisse

SUMMARY
This briefing offers three contributions concerning the voter profile of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), as witnessed at the 2021 elections in South Africa. The first is that the party's support base is relatively well educated (compared to the ruling African National Congress). Second, well over 10% of party support comes from relatively high earners, as measured by income levels. Finally, EFF support appears notably 'fluid', as indicated by voters switching support to the EFF (mostly from the ANC) and away from the EFF (mostly towards smaller parties), ultimately suggesting an image of the EFF as a 'gateway party'.

ABSTRACT
South Africa remains beset by protest. Notwithstanding an impressive literature, quantifying protests remains problematic; most attempts extrapolate from samples or media-derived data sets. Applying machine learning to the world's largest publicly available, single-country public-event database – the South African Police Service's Incident Registration Information System – the article classifies 150,000 events into type and levels of 'tumult'. The author provides the first holistic picture of all police-reported protest in South Africa over a given period (1997–2013), showing a count increase (partly confirming the 'rebellion of the poor' thesis), while more nuanced measures (i.e. protestors per capita) demonstrate a less urban and tumultuous phenomenon than previously theorised.