Hermann Pretorius | May 20, 2025
South Africans want policies and politics that unlock job creation, reward merits, and protect what people own.
The ANC government's policies are a step away with the notable majority preferences of 65% to 79% of self-identified ANC supporters.
This is one of the key findings that emerge from the latest votes by the Institute for Racial Relations (IRR).
Polling results focusing on what South Africans believe are the most effective approaches to empowerment, economic growth and service delivery are included in the second of three reports on the survey. Policy preferences of registered voterspublished in the webinar today.
The findings were drawn from a representative demographic national survey conducted between March 27th and April 3rd, 2025.
Surprisingly, among the ANC supporters:
-73% support merit-based appointments for all jobs against race-based targets or quotas.
-65% support public procurement based on valuable considerations surrounding racial goals.
-79% oppose expropriation law. This is higher than the national average.
-78% The government focuses on job creation rather than welfare support and expanding grants. and
-77% believe that tax-funded voucher-based systems for housing, education and healthcare will be more effective empowerment policies than current positive action and employment equity policies.
The overall findings are as follows:
Job creation continues to be a national priority: Reinforcing multi-year patterns in IRR voting, unemployment and job creation is the highest preferred national priorities.
The merit outweighs race: The majority of 84% support merit-based appointments to all jobs. This figure combines those who support merit-only appointments (30.5%) with those who support merit-based appointments (53.5%) with those who support merit-based appointments for people in previously disadvantaged groups.
Better money worth racial-based procurement targets: The majority of 81.7% want the state to buy from the best-priced supplier. This figure combines those who prefer purely valuable sourcing with racial considerations (54.1%) with those who support and those who support racial considerations that act as merely tiebreakers as tiebreakers that provide comparable value (27.6%).
Property rights are expropriated without compensation: A substantial majority of 68.1% are opposed to the expropriation law, signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa in early 2025.
Work surpasses welfare: The majority of 77.8% support the government's focus on job creation on expanding welfare support and grants;
Choice outweighs state-controlled empowerment policies: The majority of 76.3% believe that tax-funded voucher-based systems for housing, education and healthcare will be more effective empowerment policies than current positive action and employment equity policies.
The report states: “South Africans can't speak more clearly. They want policies and politics that unlock job creation, hunting every cent of value, policies and politics that protect what people own and get firsthand the key issues, such as education, housing, and health care. Voters will gravity or endure in projects that they deem as wasteful, unfair or threatening.”
According to the report, “In the case of the ANC, the warning light flashes red. Race-based allocation, procurement, signature platforms for expropriation without compensation, and, as has been increasingly floating in recent years, permanent basic income grants have been opposed by most South Africans, and, more worryingly, about three-quarters of a quarter have fallen.
“Unless parties rewrite their economic scripts on large-scale job creation, clean and competitive bidding, safe property rights and civic-level empowerment based on choices, there is a risk of turning the 2024 election defeat into a 2026/7 denial followed by the Wholesale 2029 route.”
The report states, “South Africa… stands in a hinge moment. The broad electoral mandate is now persuasive with political play for growing, merit-driven, choice-oriented policy settlements and its election profits. Paradigms take risks not only for long-term economic stagnation, but also for critical and disastrous election calculations.”
To watch today's webinar – Hermann Pretorius, author of the report and head of IRR in strategic communication, has published the findings – click here.
Hermann Pretorius, Head of IRR Strategic Communications, May 19, 2025
“Disclaimer – the views and opinions expressed in this article are the views of the author and are not necessarily those of the Bee Room.”
