The 2024 election result, readers may recall, saw the African National Congress (ANC) at 40% and the Democratic Alliance (DA) at around 22% for a gap of 18 points, out of which the Government of National Unity (GNU) was born. Subsequent polls conducted at regular intervals through the early stages of the GNU put the gap at around 22 points, then 11 points, and then 16 points.

But roughly a year into the GNU something shifted.

In the run-up to the 2025 budget the ANC and the DA became embroiled in a bitter dispute over tax increases. The ANC wished to increase the VAT rate and the DA went on the offensive and robustly opposed the ANC in an unprecedented show of strength. For a time the ANC recoiled, that it would not be dictated to, but the DA continued to press the attack and, as it did so, the gap between the parties narrowed to just 4 points, with the ANC at 33% and the DA at 29%.

That was the closest they ever came to each other.

Thereafter the gap again widened, hitting levels of 14 points and 11 points as the most recent SRF/The Common Sense polls reported.

So how far apart are the parties?

If all the available points gaps are averaged, including the election gap itself, then the DA-ANC gap has stood at around 12 or 13 points over the past roughly two years, which is remarkably in line with the most recent figure of 11 points.

The longer-term trajectory is of course emphatic. Thirty, twenty, and even ten years ago the gap between the parties stood at around 60 points, 55 points, and 50 points. So closing the gap to just over 10 points is a profound shift in South Africa’s domestic political balance of forces. But there is a case to made that the 10-point gap has remained sticky over the past 24 months despite the stand-out 2025 VAT hike moment that saw the two rivals come within a whisper of each other.