South African Election Maps and Stats

[Hash]

Hashemite, do you think you could do vote strength maps for COPE in PE? Looking at the 2009 results it looks like they got some votes from blacks but also did well among  coloureds (Northern Cape was their best province, IIRC, and looking at the map on wiki it looks like they actually won a few wards in rural WC/NC that I think are mostly coloured). I'd be interested to see how well they did in some of the coloured areas of PE.

I won't do a map just yet, but here are some COPE performances in predominantly Coloured neighborhoods, by ward:

Ward 13, Helenvale (98% C): 1.24% ward, 1.34% PR
Ward 32, Hillside (95%)-Salsoneville (97%)-Salt Lake (96%): 0.91% ward, 1.03% PR
Ward 35, Sanctor (99%)-West End (97%): 0.96% ward, 0.88% PR
Ward 34, Arcadia (95%): 1.97% ward, 1.63% PR
Ward 37 (this likely includes some black areas): 3.06% ward, 3.54% PR
Ward 29 (might include a few black precincts): 3.95% ward, 1.96% PR
Ward 41, Booyen Park (97%)+a large black slum area: 2.76% ward, 2.6% PR
Ward 49, Rosedale (96%)-Mountain View (95%): 1.16% ward, 2.26% PR
Ward 10, Gelvandale (94%)-Gelvan Park (88%)-Parkside (89%): 0.79% ward, 0.85% PR
Ward 7-Precinct 277, Shauderville (97%): 3.22% ward, 3.11% PR

In contrast, some selected black township wards:

Ward 14: 11.49% ward, 11.29% PR
Ward 15: 8.38% ward/PR
Ward 16: 10.24% ward, 9.42% PR
Ward 17: 7.76% ward, 7.75% PR
Ward 18: 6.14% ward, 5.73% PR
Ward 19: 10.25% ward, 9.49% PR
Ward 59: 10.87% ward, 10.45% PR

etc...

I'm kind of frustrated that the 2009 results aren't available by ward and the precinct data might be iffy given that some precincts changed boundaries between 2009 and 2011 and there's no way of knowing which ones did and didn't and if they changed numbers.

[Kitteh]

Hmm...interesting. Thanks.

[they don't love you like i love you]

COPE is basically a bunch of old corrupt and autocratic ANC party hacks who had a falling out with the ANC central leadership and now campaign on the guise of being reformers. So I don't see why they'd do too well amongst the DA, though there might be some middle class blacks who vote for them pretending that they are reformers and would vote for the DA over the ANC in a two way election if absolutely forced.

[Kitteh]

COPE is basically a bunch of old corrupt and autocratic ANC party hacks who had a falling out with the ANC central leadership and now campaign on the guise of being reformers. So I don't see why they'd do too well amongst the DA, though there might be some middle class blacks who vote for them pretending that they are reformers and would vote for the DA over the ANC in a two way election if absolutely forced.

My (non)understanding was that the people who vote for COPE are basically people who hate the ANC but also hate the DA. So I guess it would just come down to who they hate the most

[Hash]

I've gotten my hand on 2009 GE results by ward, so hopefully I can do something interesting with that, but before any of that I'll need to work out any boundary changes between 2009 and 2011 :S

[Hash]

I've been looking at 2009 results by ward in PE, and while still not sure about boundary changes, here's something interesting.

COPE's best ward was ward 30:
ANC 65.6%, COPE 31.2%, UDM 1%, DA 0.7%

In 2011, the PR list vote went ANC 82.4%, COPE 10.9%, DA 3.8%, UDM 1.3%. In the ward vote, an indie took 20.4%, almost all from the ANC which won only 64.3% on that ballot.

It is naturally a 99% black ward or so, but it's fairly interesting. It includes Soweto on Sea, a really run down ghetto/shantytown, but also Kwamagxaki, a fairly black middle-class type of area (Google StreetView will show you).

Results by precinct:
Kwamagxaki (2011 PR results)
10250682:
ANC 53.1% (76.8%)
COPE 42.7% (15.7%)
UDM 1.3% (0.7%)
DA 1.2% (4.9%)

10250862
ANC 49.9% (76.3%)
COPE 45.9% (13.2%)
UDM 1.4% (2.5%)
DA 0.9% (7%)

Soweto on Sea (2011 PR results)
10250693:
ANC 85.4% (89.8%)
COPE 12.6% (6.3%)
UDM 0.7% (0.9%)
DA 0.3% (1.8%)

10250705
ANC 82.3% (91.9%)
COPE 15.5% (5.1%)
DA 0.5% (0.6%)

10251740
ANC 83.6% (82%)
COPE 13.2% (12.5%)
UDM 1.4% (0.7%)
DA 0.8% (1.8%)

That indie won over 40% in 10250705 and 10250693, which lie east of a main artery which seems to divide the shantytown. The indie won crumbs in Kwamagxaki.

I do hope this interests somebody besides me

[Hash]

I have 2006-2009 ward boundaries!

I will certainly finish Cape Town 2011 first, but any urgent requests for 2009 maps? I can easily do some party vote maps too.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

No requests from me, but I look forward to everything (if that makes sense).

[Kitteh]

I've been looking at 2009 results by ward in PE, and while still not sure about boundary changes, here's something interesting.

COPE's best ward was ward 30:
ANC 65.6%, COPE 31.2%, UDM 1%, DA 0.7%

In 2011, the PR list vote went ANC 82.4%, COPE 10.9%, DA 3.8%, UDM 1.3%. In the ward vote, an indie took 20.4%, almost all from the ANC which won only 64.3% on that ballot.

It is naturally a 99% black ward or so, but it's fairly interesting. It includes Soweto on Sea, a really run down ghetto/shantytown, but also Kwamagxaki, a fairly black middle-class type of area (Google StreetView will show you).

Results by precinct:
Kwamagxaki (2011 PR results)
10250682:
ANC 53.1% (76.8%)
COPE 42.7% (15.7%)
UDM 1.3% (0.7%)
DA 1.2% (4.9%)

10250862
ANC 49.9% (76.3%)
COPE 45.9% (13.2%)
UDM 1.4% (2.5%)
DA 0.9% (7%)

Soweto on Sea (2011 PR results)
10250693:
ANC 85.4% (89.8%)
COPE 12.6% (6.3%)
UDM 0.7% (0.9%)
DA 0.3% (1.8%)

10250705
ANC 82.3% (91.9%)
COPE 15.5% (5.1%)
DA 0.5% (0.6%)

10251740
ANC 83.6% (82%)
COPE 13.2% (12.5%)
UDM 1.4% (0.7%)
DA 0.8% (1.8%)

That indie won over 40% in 10250705 and 10250693, which lie east of a main artery which seems to divide the shantytown. The indie won crumbs in Kwamagxaki.

I do hope this interests somebody besides me

So if I'm reading that right, that means COPE did better in the middle-class-ish areas than in the really poor areas? That makes sense.

And Google Street View really is awesome.

Thanks for all of this by the way, I'm really loving it.

[Kitteh]

Just for comparison, here is a map from wiki showing dominant languages in PE:


Beige is English (spoken mostly by whites), teal is Afrikaans (coloureds) and red is Xhosa (blacks). Grey means that no one language is dominant.

Compare that with Hashemite's map of the election:


Very strong correlation, obviously.

[Hash]

Language (especially as defined by the census) is very much a cover for race, and in my interpretation of South African politics, race trumps basically every other factor.

Here is Cape Town 2011





Comments:

No cookies for guessing where white people live, or even for guessing where Coloured people live. The coloured wards were very strong for the DA, with over 65-70% in most and nearing 80-85% in a good number of them.

The exceptions for this seem to be Atlantis, an isolated and economically deprived "exurban" type town in the far north of the city's legal boundaries, where the ANC managed 25-35% in almost all polls, which is fairly strong. There seems to be a predominantly Coloured area in the urban core, Vogelvlei, which voted ANC (with 55%). It is a shantytown-type area, but that can't explain it because tons of Coloured shantytowns voted DA.

Wards which appear to be 'tight' - eg the winning percentage is low (45-55%) do not usually indicate racially mixed areas but rather polarized wards which include black areas and white/coloured areas. If you were to look at them at the precinct level, you would see the usual racial polarization.

A weird thing is also the University of the Western Cape which voted 84% or so ANC, I don't know if this is a predominantly black campus.

On the linguistic aspect of things, however, with the DA's crap-poor performances even in Cape Town's black wards, I am left wondering if Xhosa black voters (as most blacks in Cape Town are) might be more inclined to voting ANC or at least not voting for the DA than other black voters (Joburg/Pretoria blacks are mainly either Zulu, Sotho or Tswana). Mandela was a Xhosa (as was Mbeki) so perhaps that might play a role. The DA did increase its vote in black areas compared to 2006, for sure, but their vote remains extremely low (even as an incumbent party with a strong governance record, which is the DA's strategy for winning over black voters).

Any requests for 2009 or 2011 maps?

[Hash]

Updated the above post with my comments and observations for Cape Town. But I do hope that more people than just me and my fantastic follower drj101 are following this

[Novelty]

I'm following this Hashemite, but I have no comments.  Keep up the good work?  I'm enjoying it so far.

[Kitteh]

On the linguistic aspect of things, however, with the DA's crap-poor performances even in Cape Town's black wards, I am left wondering if Xhosa black voters (as most blacks in Cape Town are) might be more inclined to voting ANC or at least not voting for the DA than other black voters (Joburg/Pretoria blacks are mainly either Zulu, Sotho or Tswana). Mandela was a Xhosa (as was Mbeki) so perhaps that might play a role. The DA did increase its vote in black areas compared to 2006, for sure, but their vote remains extremely low (even as an incumbent party with a strong governance record, which is the DA's strategy for winning over black voters).

Weren't there some people who were predicting that there would be a backlash against the ANC among Xhosa for dropping Mbeki and replacing him with a Zulu (Zuma)? I guess that didn't happen at all.

If you're feeling inclined to do more, I'd like to see Durban (or eThekwini, as its officially called, which according to wiki may mean "the one-testicled one" in Zulu ).

Although wiki actually has a map of the 2006 election in eThekwini:


Red being the Inkatha Freedom Party, Purple being indies, and Orange being the Minority Front, which IIRC is a party for Indians.

If you do a 2011 map it would be kind of cool to compare it to the 2006 one. I wonder if the IFP still holds any FPTP seats.

[Kitteh]

A weird thing is also the University of the Western Cape which voted 84% or so ANC, I don't know if this is a predominantly black campus.

According to Adrian Frith's census website (census.adrianfrith.com), UWC was 89% black in the 2001 census: http://census.adrianfrith.com/place/17102062

How surprising that the ANC vote is almost the exact same as the black %

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Updated the above post with my comments and observations for Cape Town. But I do hope that more people than just me and my fantastic follower drj101 are following this

No, no, this is good.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Something on rural KwaZulu-Natal would be great, actually.

[Hash]

In the meantime, here's something on which I've always sought out more information: apartheid-era white-only elections. I got my hand on 1987 results, here they are in Google Maps:

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=204535606153981578947.0004cb583e8faf4020459&msa=0&ll=-26.833875,31.333008&spn=6.712698,11.634521

[Hash]

No comments on 1987? Anyhow, here's Durban, with a bunch of maps because it's interesting











The IFP and the NFP's strength track one another fairly closely. The remnants of strong IFP votes are seats they held in 2006, plus some random place (won by the DA) where it got 31% on the ward vote but only 14.7% on the list vote, that difference between the IFP ward and PR votes all going to the DA.

The MF is the Minority Front, a racial (Indian) and regional party led by Amichand Rajbansi up until 2011. Amichand Rajbansi was the chief minister for the Indians during the tricameral legislature era, he was basically a very corrupt party boss. The MF is by no means the sole party for Indians, the Indian vote in Durban in 2011 was split with the DA with a few crumbs for the ANC. I can't really tell if there's any difference between Indians who vote DA or MF, but I think the MF's vote is heavily personalist/ward-based these days and a lot of it votes for the DA in national elections anyways (for example, while the MF got some 6% in Durban in 2011, it got only a bit over 2% in 2009 GE iirc).

I will look into doing some parts of rural KZN next, in 2011.

[Kitteh]

What are all those gray areas in the DA map? Places where the DA didn't even bother running a candidate?

[Hash]

2009 GE in Joburg:



and the COPE vote in the city

[Kitteh]

Excellent, thanks! The COPE map in particular is really interesting. If I'm reading that right, COPE is definitely a black middle class party.

[Dan the Roman]

In the meantime, here's something on which I've always sought out more information: apartheid-era white-only elections. I got my hand on 1987 results, here they are in Google Maps:

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=204535606153981578947.0004cb583e8faf4020459&msa=0&ll=-26.833875,31.333008&spn=6.712698,11.634521

1987 or 1981? I thought the NRP had wrapped up by 1987?

[Dan the Roman]

In the meantime, here's something on which I've always sought out more information: apartheid-era white-only elections. I got my hand on 1987 results, here they are in Google Maps:

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=204535606153981578947.0004cb583e8faf4020459&msa=0&ll=-26.833875,31.333008&spn=6.712698,11.634521

1987 or 1981? I thought the NRP had wrapped up by 1987?

Looks like too many NRP seats for 1987

[Hash]

It's 1981, it used to be 1987 but apparently Google Maps overwrites the old stuff if you modify it.