Sixty-four percent of South Africans were against Jacob Zuma becoming president of the country, a survey commissioned by the Sunday Times has shown.
”This [Zuma’s rape trial] has had a negative impact on metropolitan-residing South Africans’ perceptions of both the African National Congress and the government,” the Sunday Times quoted an analyst for the survey as saying.
President Thabo Mbeki emerged relatively unscathed from the saga.
According to the Markinor survey, 49% agreed with the not-guilty verdict in Zuma’s rape trial. Forty percent didn’t and 11% were not sure.
Fifty-one percent of those questioned accepted Zuma’s apology for his conduct. Forty-two percent said the trial had affected their perceptions of the ruling party. Of these, 75% said the effect was negative.
Mbeki had handled the rape trial very well or fairly well, said 59% of those surveyed.
The survey was conducted telephonically in 12 metropolitan areas and among an even spread of income groups.
Researches said the poll was an accurate barometer of urban political sentiments.
Zuma was found not guilty in the Johannesburg High Court last Monday of raping a 31-year-old HIV-positive woman at his Johannesburg home in November last year.
Judge Willem van der Merwe found that Zuma and his accuser had consensual sex in Zuma’s main bedroom.
However, the judge told Zuma in his judgement it was ”totally unacceptable” for a man to have unprotected sex with a woman who was not his regular partner, especially knowing that she was HIV-positive. ”Had Rudyard Kipling known of this case at the time he wrote his poem If, he might have added the following: ‘And if you can control your body and your sexual urges, then you are a man, my son’.”
The judge also said ”he would not even comment” on Zuma’s evidence that he had a shower after the intercourse to lessen his chances of contracting the virus.
Large crowds of Zuma supporters were ecstatic outside the court when the verdict was announced. Punching their fists into the air, they shouted ”Zuma, Zuma”. The crowd had been gathering all day, singing, dancing and waving placards.
A core of the group was standing on a police armoured vehicle and were ordered off, whereupon they climbed on to the roof of the Innes Chambers building. People cheered, waving their shirts from the roofs of buildings and climbing on to police cars.
Dancers in traditional Zulu dress performed in Pritchard Street as well as behind palisade fencing at the entrance to the court. The crowd slowly spilled beyond a police barrier that had confined people to Kruis Street.
Inside the court, hugs, cheers of joy and ululation marked Zuma’s not-guilty verdict. His supporters jumped on to the Johannesburg High Court benches, sang ”uZuma yo my president” and shrieked and ululated.
Zuma held his lawyer Kemp J Kemp in a tight embrace and then moved down the line to thank the other four lawyers who helped secure his freedom. State prosecutor Charin de Beer picked up her bag and quickly walked out of court — without commenting. Zuma left the court soon afterwards, his bodyguards remaining mum.
When Zuma was asked how he felt after being found not guilty, he smiled and saluted. — Sapa