ANC, EFF making waves on social media during Elections 2019

As the country waits for the results of the National and Provincial Elections of 8 May, social media commentators say the African National Congress (ANC) is emerging as the big winner in the online space at least. 

According to Tonya Khoury of Acumen Media, it is clear that the ANC made a concerted last-minute effort on social media. 

"It was phenomenal to see the level of social media coming out of social media about the elections," says Khoury, noting that there were a million unique items (social media posts) in a 24-hour period, making it by far the top story on every South African's lips. 

"It's fascinating to see also the number of people who are happy to declare who they voted for," she adds, explaining that while the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is very visible on social media, the sentiment around them is often negative. 

"The majority of posts belong to the ANC - they've definitely done a big final push overnight," says Khoury. 

The most positive online sentiments across all politicians related to ANC President, Cyril Ramaphosa who enjoys more social support than EFF leader, Julius Malema and Democratic Alliance (DA) leader, Mmusi Maimane. 

However, one fo the nig movers-and-shakers of the election is the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) who had registered 130 096 votes by 10:30am with about 30% of voting districts declared, compared to 165 715 in total after the 2014 election. 

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Khoury says the FF + is one of the smallest parties represented on social media - not even making the top 10 in South Africa - proving that parties can be successful in 2019 even without harnassing the power of social media.