Forty-six percent of South Africans who participated in a poll conducted by Research Surveys in August this year believed that President Thabo Mbeki was doing a good job as president of South Africa.
Research Surveys said the results of the poll stemmed from interviews with 3 500 respondents over the age of 18. Fifty-seven percent of the respondents were in the major metropolitan areas, 25% in rural areas, and the remaining 18% in small urban areas.
In contrast to the 46% who thought the president was doing a good job, 43% felt he was not.
Research Surveys said the results for the metropolitan population had improved significantly over time — in February last year, only 27% of metropolitan South Africans felt Mbeki was doing a good job. This figure rose to 37% in February this year and in August stood at 43%.
In terms of the age of respondents, Mbeki’s popularity was lowest among the youth, the 18 to 24-year-olds, and in the 50 plus category, scoring 43% for both groups.
Among metropolitan respondents, those in the 50 plus category also scored Mbeki lowest in terms of his doing a good job (38%), while respondents aged 25 to 34 years scored highest (49%).
Research Surveys said the skew to the senior citizens — the 50 plus category — was mirrored in the rural population — although much higher relative to the metropolitan and small urban populations, only 50% of 50 plus year-olds felt Mbeki was doing a good job, compared with 55% across all other rural age groups.
”Small urban people seem to stand apart from the rest — the lowest proportion of people who believed Mbeki was serving his term well was among the 25-34 year olds, at 32%.”
Research Surveys said rural and racial skews were evident. Figures were strongly skewed towards the black population — 54% had positive feelings about Mbeki’s presidency, compared to 26% of coloureds who felt this way. The figures for whites and Indians were the lowest, in the region of 20%.
”More than half of the rural population that was interviewed (54%) felt that Mbeki was doing a good job,” Research Surveys said.
This was significantly higher than the figures for metro and small urban areas, which were 43% and 39% respectively.
Research Surveys said positive sentiment towards Mbeki decreased with affluence — 57% of those who earned less than R800 a month per household thought Mbeki was doing a good job, while only 27% of those earning R15 000 in household income a month, or more, agreed.
The figures for the unemployed sectors of the population were slightly higher than for working or retired individuals — 48% were happy with Mbeki versus 45% for both working individuals and for retired/student/housewife populations.
People living in the Western Cape and Kwazulu-Natal were the most disgruntled with Mbeki — only 31% of those in the Western Cape, and 38% of those in Kwazulu-Natal felt Mbeki was doing a good job, compared to the highest figure of 55% in the Free State. – Sapa