Zuma’s approval ratings tumbled from May 2015

Former president Jacob Zuma’s popularity declined dramatically between May 2015 and November last year, a study by market and opinion research company Ipsos shows.

Trust in government and optimism about the future of the country also declined during this period. Zuma resigned as state president late on Wednesday evening, after having initially defied his party’s requests for him to step down.

Cyril Ramaphosa was sworn in as president of the republic on Thursday afternoon.

Ramaphosa took over the reins of the ANC presidency in December in Nasrec, Johannesburg, when the party held its national conference.

Ipsos compared perceptions of South African citizens from May 2009, when Zuma was sworn in, to November 2017, which was just before the ANC’s conference took place.

In a statement released by Ipsos on Thursday, Mari Harris, director of public affairs, said: “When looking at perceptions of South Africans for this time period, there is a clear trend of declining optimism and dwindling appreciation of the work undertaken by government [under Zuma] in different areas of delivery.”

A fully representative sample of at least 3,500 adult South Africans were interviewed as part of the research.

Harris said the ratings of how well Zuma was doing at his job had declined slowly since May 2010 where almost 70% of the population rated his performance favourably.

“The greatest decline occurred between May 2015 and May 2016 … in November 2017 only one quarter of South Africans measured Zuma as doing his job well or fairly well,” Harris said.

The research also indicated that by November 2017, almost 70% of South Africans believed SA was going in the wrong direction, compared to only 20% that believed SA was still on the right path.

Only a quarter of South Africans believed government was handling the fight against corruption in government well or fairly well.

At the height of trust in government’s ability to fight corruption during Zuma’s almost two terms, only four out of every 10 South Africans believed this.

Harris made it clear that a lot of work has to be done to restore the trust in government’s ability to handle issues of national concern.

Perceptions of how well the economy was being managed were never strong, peaking at only 50%.

By November 2017 only 25% of South Africans still believed the economy was managed well by the government.

Harris said the one thing Ramaphosa would have to do as president of both the state and the ANC was to restore trust in the position of the president, as well as the party he leads.