South African President Thabo Mbeki’s approval rating has dropped to its lowest level in four years following a series of scandals involving the governing African National Congress (ANC) party, a poll showed on Thursday.
The poll, by the Johannesburg-based Research Surveys, showed that Mbeki has a 53% approval rating, 8% down on the figure recorded six months ago.
Mbeki, who is due to stand down as head of the ANC next year and president of the country in 2009, has presided over a series of embarrassing incidents in recent months during which the party’s chief whip has been expelled for sexual harassment and a string of lawmakers convicted of, or admitting to, fiddling their expenses.
Research Surveys director Neil Higgs said Mbeki’s support has also tailed off as a result of the government’s failure to fight the rampant crime rate.
A temporary boost to his rating, which followed his decision to sack deputy president Jacob Zuma last year, has since faded, with Zuma’s supporters constantly sniping at the president.
Mbeki’s first three years in office from 2000 saw him struggle with approval ratings that hovered around the 30% mark as he tried to shake off the shadow of his popular predecessor Nelson Mandela. However, his popularity shot up when South Africa won the right to stage the 2010 World Cup.
A total of 2 000 people were questioned for the survey, which has a 2,5% margin of error.
Meanwhile, the ANC has dropped in its popularity among voters since the local elections held in March this year, according to a popularity survey on socio-political trends conducted by Markinor.
The survey, which was released on Thursday, is a bi-annual measurement of testing the political atmosphere in the country. A total of 3 500 people who are eligible to vote were interviewed between October and November 2006.
The participants were given a ballot paper with names of political parties and asked to vote for their party as done during national elections.
The survey showed that the ANC popularity had dropped by 1,7% from 68% — which they received in May 2006 — to 66,3%, which is the same percentage that they received in last year’s survey.
Support for the Inkatha Freedom Party instead remained level at 3%, while the popularity of the Democratic Alliance was on a downward spiral as they dropped from 10% in 2005 to 8,9% in 2006.
Although support for the Independent Democrats has declined from 2% to 1,2%, its leader Patricia De Lille was rated by the public as the most popular opposition party leader with 4,1%.
Haemorrhaging of support
Last month it was reported that, according to analysts, an unprecedented string of scandals has led to a haemorrhaging of support for the ANC, which can only be reversed with a thorough purge of the leadership.
With its former chief whip in prison, his successor expelled for sexual harassment and its deputy president under a cloud after his financial adviser was jailed, the party that has dominated power since the end of apartheid appears intent on dragging itself through the mud on a weekly basis.
”This puts the party in as bad a position as ever before,” said political analyst Frederik van Zyl Slabbert. ”There is no cohesive control. The leadership is just giving speeches about corruption and everything, but there is no action; nothing is being done. The only solution, which seems to be hard for the party leaders, is to fire the corrupt officials and get Luthuli House [ANC headquarters] in order. Period.”
Scandal is hardly a new phenomenon for the ANC.
Allan Boesak, one of its spiritual leaders during the battle against the whites-only regime, was jailed for siphoning off party funds in 2000, while former president Nelson Mandela’s ex-wife Winnie — who was also head of the ANC Women’s League — was convicted of fraud.
But the roll of shame of the past few months has left some to charge that its unchallenged authority since the end of apartheid 12 years ago has led to complacency and abuse of power.
When former chief whip Tony Yengeni was jailed for fraud in August, he was carried to prison on the shoulders of party supporters with the speaker of Parliament and a Cabinet minister in attendance.
His successor, Mbulelo Goniwe, who was already being chased for unpaid child maintenance, was expelled for sexual harassment.
And Jacob Zuma, the movement’s deputy president who was cleared of rape earlier this year, still faces possible corruption charges linked to his former financial adviser and one-time ANC banker Schabir Shaik, who has begun a 15-year jail sentence.
Aubrey Matshiqi, an analyst at the Johannesburg-based Centre for Policy Studies, said the conduct of ANC bigwigs is damaging public faith in South Africa’s fledgling democracy. ”It undermines the confidence of the voter, undermines the image of politics and politicians in general. People no longer have confidence in the party’s moral authority,” he says. — Sapa-AFP