Oct 1, 2026 · 53 min · 11 segments
Rob Rose and Zukile Majova are joined by Gareth van Onselen, CEO of Victory Research, for episode 27 of Sharp Sharp, the weekly podcast on politics, money and power from the Financial Mail and…
Gareth van OnselenGuest
Rob RoseHostZukile MajovaHostYou know, I'm interested in whether you guys picked up the rise of Zulu nationalism in the last election.
As political reporters, we explained in detail that... with Mangusutu gone, Jacob Zuma is no longer in power.
So at the top of government, you didn't have enough Zulu people who used to be really always been there in the government, quite powerful.
You know, even if you got the ANC, the very high profile person was Senzong Tunu, who happens to be in trouble now.
And that's because we looked at Jacob Zuma, the politician, and not the rise of Zulu nationalism.
And the fact that everything in the MK party seems, you know, the media tends to say it's a Jacob Zuma driven thing as opposed to something deeper.
I know ENCA does a poll every year, every election year, with Mark Darter, who are a really good, reputable company.
The SRF picked up that there was a massive surge, particularly in KZN, on MK, which was difficult for people to believe.
And I mean, the reason why it is fairly easy for a good poll to pick up that stuff is it was substantial.
I mean, polls struggle with small parties, especially parties that fall within the margin of error.
So you're the Freedom Front and you're a 2% party and the margin of error on a poll is 3%.
But when you're a massive force like MK was, that is a substantive game changer in a province like KZN, I mean, you know, they're close to 50%, your poll would have to be catastrophically wrong not to pick that up.
And it's, you know, it sounds flippant to say, oh, you know, if you know how to read the data, you'll know exactly what's happening.
You know, I'm interested in whether you guys picked up the rise of Zulu nationalism in the last election.
As political reporters, we explained in detail that... with Mangusutu gone, Jacob Zuma is no longer in power.
So at the top of government, you didn't have enough Zulu people who used to be really always been there in the government, quite powerful.
You know, even if you got the ANC, the very high profile person was Senzong Tunu, who happens to be in trouble now.
And that's because we looked at Jacob Zuma, the politician, and not the rise of Zulu nationalism.
And the fact that everything in the MK party seems, you know, the media tends to say it's a Jacob Zuma driven thing as opposed to something deeper.
I know ENCA does a poll every year, every election year, with Mark Darter, who are a really good, reputable company.
The SRF picked up that there was a massive surge, particularly in KZN, on MK, which was difficult for people to believe.
And I mean, the reason why it is fairly easy for a good poll to pick up that stuff is it was substantial.
I mean, polls struggle with small parties, especially parties that fall within the margin of error.
So you're the Freedom Front and you're a 2% party and the margin of error on a poll is 3%.
But when you're a massive force like MK was, that is a substantive game changer in a province like KZN, I mean, you know, they're close to 50%, your poll would have to be catastrophically wrong not to pick that up.
And it's, you know, it sounds flippant to say, oh, you know, if you know how to read the data, you'll know exactly what's happening.
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