"It is hidden from the South African people that this poll is produced by Victory Research - whose managing partner is a currently employed Head of Research of the DA," this is according to a social media post from the ActionSA National Chairperson Michael Beaumont, reacting to the new polls by Social Research Foundation (SRF).
The latest polling by the SRF has suggested that the ANC would get 37, DA 25%, MK 14%, EFF 11%, IFP - 5% and ActionSA at 2%.
At least one of the established election polling companies in the country is said to be owned by the chief researcher of the Democratic Alliance (DA) Johan van der Berg, who is the founder and managing partner of Victory Research according to their site.
Gareth van Onselen is the Chief Executive Officer of Victory Research.
In a now viral clip by the Mail & Guardian (M&G), the DA leader John Steenhuisen confirmed that Johan van der Berg is the party's employee in charge of polling for them.
"He works for the DA and does our polling, he obviously contracts out because of the specialist skills that are required," he said to M&G.
This raised questions of legitimacy and credibility of the polls managed by a person in another political party.
Speaking to IOL, Beaumont said the nature of his post was to say "this is a severe conflict of interest and speaks to the unregulated polling industry in South Africa."
He said nowhere in the world you would have an organisation allowed to publicly produce polling in such a complex unregulated manner that is done in South Africa.
"The issue here is that perceptions of growth and decline are important features in voters' choices. People want to vote for parties that are getting bigger and don't want to waste their votes on parties getting smaller," he said.
Beaumont said it was not fair for a party to do such, indicating that they should be polling with citizens with their name and not in disguise.
"If ActionSA takes a poll and introduces it to the South African people, they must look at that poll through the lens of knowing it is an ActionSA poll.
The issue in hand is a poll done by an organisation that on the face of it seems credible but who outsources their polling to a heavily conflicted organisation by research," he said.
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