WHAT'S THAT JOKE?
ZUMA'S GIGGLE AT YOUR EXPENSE
THE majority of South Africans believe President Jacob Zuma does not take the country’s courts and laws seriously.
They also believe Zuma has little regard for parliament.
This is according to the latest survey on democracy and governance by leading African research project Afrobarometer.
The survey shows that 59% of South Africans feel Zuma often ignores courts and the laws of the country, and 57% feel he often ignores parliament.
It is part of a wider survey on what South Africans think of their leaders and of government performance — to be released on Tuesday by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation.
Sibusiso Nkomo, communications co-ordinator at Afrobarometer, said 2 400 respondents in rural and urban areas had answered 100 questions with sub-questions on the issue. The sample was chosen randomly with a 50-50 gender split and reflected South Africa’s demographics.
“We survey for about a month to allow us to get to all areas that have been picked using Stats SA data based on the latest census (2011), which tells us the population distribution.”
Other findings from the survey were that:
77% of the respondents believe the president should obey the laws and courts even if he does not agree with them;
78% believe the presidency should be limited to two terms, as is the case currently;
62% believe parliament should actively monitor the president and ensure he appears before it to explain his actions regularly; and
76% believe parliament, and not the president, should enact laws.
The data also shows that South Africans are losing confidence in elected leaders’ ability to police themselves, and want to be more active in keeping them accountable.
Another 25% of the respondents feel voters should hold the president directly accountable, whereas 38% feel that that role WHAT’S SO FUNNY? President Jacob Zuma ’is lucky that voters do not elect him directly’ should be left to parliament. About 19% of those surveyed felt it was the ANC’s duty to hold the president accountable, and 15% felt he should be accountable to the executive.
Nkomo said the fuller survey, which measures attitudes on democracy and governance, would be released by March next year.
The organisation worked with statistical bodies across the continent to draw the sample and choose the enumeration areas.
“We ask the same questions over time and in this way we can track the issues to see where citizens are on any given issue.”
Wits School of Governance Professor Susan Booysen said the survey outcome should worry the ruling party, and Zuma should consider himself lucky that presidents were not directly elected by South Africans.
“It confirms the little chips are starting to fall off the ANC rock. It has to sound alarm bells because if you do not stop the rot, it will go to the core,” she said.
Since the beginning of his sec- ond term, Zuma has found himself at the centre of numerous controversies, including reports on alleged misuse of state funds in the upgrades at his Nkandla home, and the state’s role in the departure of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir despite a court ordering his arrest.
Booysen said South Africans have always had a healthy interest in politics, but the robustness of the fifth parliament had created even more.
The growth in the number of people who feel voters should hold elected leaders accountable from 17% in 2006 to 28% this year indicated a loss of confidence in elected leaders and growing frustration with the ANC’s protection of the president without regard for the consequences, she added.
The Afrobarometer survey is the sixth on South Africa since 1999, and would show “the correlation between the approval and performance of leaders at national, provincial, and local level and the management of the country and what citizens believe are priority areas”, the organisation said.
It has to sound alarm bells — if you do not stop the rot, it will go to the core
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