A new poll shows that as many as three in every four South Africans want Jacob Zuma to resign as the president of South Africa.
This comes in the aftermath of the cabinet reshuffle at the end of March and the axing of both the minister of finance, Pravin Gordhan and his deputy, Mcebisi Jonas.
This is according to a Mobile survey conducted by growth strategy firm, Kantar TNS from Saturday 1 April to Monday 3 April among 1,000 South African adults and representative in terms of race, age, gender and province.
Kantar TNS said that mobile surveys provide an accurate in-the-moment measure of mood and sentiment.
Although results were consistent across race and province, White/Indian/Coloured respondents held stronger views with 84% calling for President Zuma’s resignation versus 69% of Black respondents.
The Western Cape showed the highest support for resignation (92%) with KwaZulu-Natal the lowest (63%), but still with a majority. The Eastern Cape, Gauteng and Limpopo all had support for ‘resignation’ with levels of 70% and above.
There have been calls by various parties for the president to step down, which has grown louder after ratings agencies Fitch and Standard & Poor’s both downgraded South Africa to junk status.
The ANC has defended the actions of the president despite reports of a growing split from within the ruling party.
Zuma’s performance approval rating
A study conducted by the same firm between 15 and 30 March 2017 among a sample of 2,000 South African adults living in the seven major metropolitan areas of the country, revealed that president Zuma’s approval rating was at an all-time low.
Only 20% of all South Africans, living in metropolitan areas, feel that Zuma is doing a good job as president.
In the same period, people who held the view that president Zuma is not doing a good job as president, went up from 67% to 71% of those surveyed.
The shift in ratings was most marked among black respondents with 64% disagreeing that Zuma is doing a good job as president which is up from 59% in February of 2016.
New president
To gauge support for candidates for presidency in 2019, respondents were asked ‘to what extent they would support’ certain candidates to be the president of South Africa.
Two candidates from the majority party and leaders of the two key opposition parties were included in the evaluation.
Cyril Ramaphosa, the current deputy president, garnered support from more than 50% of metro South Africans (56% would ‘support a little bit’ to ‘definitely support’).
Mmusi Maimane, leader of the Democratic Alliance was supported by 42% of those surveyed with Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma just behind at 41.8%. The leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, Julius Malema had only 24% support among urban dwellers in the survey.
- Cyril Ramaphosa – 56%
- Mmusi Maiman – 42%
- Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma – 42%
- Julius Malema – 24%
