Justin Pearce
Minister of Home Affairs Mangosuthu Buthelezi has been given a humiliating thumbs-down by the business community. In a survey published today, top South African business executives have rated Buthelezi a miserable 3,8 out of 10 – – even lower than The Weekly Mail & Guardian’s own “report- card” in which he scraped through with a five.
Trade unionists were slightly better disposed towards Buthelezi than their bosses, giving him 4,3.
The survey, of 100 leading business executives and 55 unionists throughout the country, was conducted by the Community Agency for Social Enquiry (Case). It was commissioned jointly by the South African Chamber of Business (Sacob), the WM&G and SATV’s Agenda. Full details of the survey results can be read in Business Mail oday.
But business and labour concur in putting President Nelson Mandela at the top of the list. In the Case survey, Mandela got an average score of nine from the unionists, and 8,7 from executives. The respondents admired Mandela particularly for his leadership abilities and his role in bringing about reconciliation.
And while company executives are full of praise for Mandela, the Democratic Party, once the last white hope of the liberal business community, has fallen from grace with a resounding bang. More than half the respondents (52%) gave a definite “no” when asked whether they thought the DP had a future, and 13 percent were unsure.
Of the deputy presidents, Thabo Mbeki scored 7,1 with the unionists and 6,5 with executives. FW de Klerk got 6,1 from unionists, and 6,3 from the businesspeople. Unionists and bosses were moderately pleased with RDP minister Jay Naidoo, giving him respectively 6,7 and 6.
Labour Minister Tito Mboweni is noticeably more popular with the unionists — who gave him 7,2 — than with the bosses, who gave him 5,8. In fact, the unionists rated Mboweni second only to Mandela.Executives gave second place to Minister of Finance Chris Liebenberg, who came in at 7,4. Unionists were slightly less enthusiastic, giving Liebenberg 6,8