IN NUMBERS: How South Africa fell out of love with Zuma over the years
Image: GCIS
Jacob Zuma’s tenure as president of South Africa was marked by a distinct decline in public trust.
Afrobarometer‚ using data from national surveys in the country‚ has issued a report card on the Zuma era and how public perceptions about him and government gradually took a turn for the worse.
Zuma came to power in 2009 and resigned with immediate effect on Valentine’s Day in 2018.
His nine-year stint as leader of the country was peppered with allegations of corruption‚ state capture and waning support from voters sympathetic to the ANC.
Afrobarometer – a research network that conducts public attitude surveys on democracy‚ governance and economic conditions in various countries on the continent – focused specifically on how perceptions had changed between 2011 and 2015. Its key findings were that:
• Zuma’s approval ratings were at a respectable 64% in 2011 but dropped by almost half over the next four years. Only one-third of South Africans (36%) approved of his job performance by 2015.
• Public trust in Zuma declined by almost half over the same period. While 62% of citizens said they trusted him “somewhat” or “a lot” in 2011‚ that proportion had shrunk to 34% by 2015.
• Zuma’s government was seen to perform “fairly well” or “very well” in distributing welfare (84%) but not in fighting corruption (20%) or narrowing gaps between the rich and poor (22%). Over his full tenure‚ Zuma’s government was perceived to have performed especially badly in reducing crime‚ managing immigration and the economy‚ and fighting corruption.
• Between 2011 and 2015‚ the proportion of South Africans who saw the country as a “full democracy” or one with minor problems dropped from 66% to 48%. Similarly‚ fewer than half of citizens were satisfied in 2015 with the way their democracy was working.
Afrobarometer’s team in South Africa‚ led by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation and Plus94 Research‚ interviewed a sample of 2‚400 adults in the country in September 2015. Previous surveys were done in South Africa in 2000‚ 2002‚ 2006‚ 2008 and 2011.