A survey by research group Ipsos South Africa has found that 62% of South Africans think President Cyril Ramaphosa is doing his job well.
Ipsos released the findings of its Pulse of the People survey, which was conducted between September and November last year, on Tuesday.
This is the second survey in as many weeks that puts Ramaphosa ahead of all political leaders in South Africa. The SA Citizen Survey released last week similarly found that he has a 61% favourability rating.
A drop from 70% in February 2018
Ipsos’ survey found that 25% of respondents said the President is doing his work “very well” while 37% said “fairly well.”
However, this is a drop from the 70% approval rating Ramaphosa had when he first assumed office in February 2018, Ipsos said.
It added, “Like previous ANC [African National Congress ] leaders including Presidents Mandela and Mbeki, President Ramaphosa also gets a higher approval rating than the National Government (at 51%).”
Ipsos also asked respondents to allocate points out of 10 to political leaders, with 10 being totally in favour and 0 being totally against.
Ramaphosa gets 7/10 score
Ramaphosa received a score of seven out of 10, the highest of all political party leaders in the country.
Deputy President David Mabuza and Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe followed with 4.3 points each.
Respondents gave former Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Mmusi Maimane 4.3 points and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema 4.2.
Interestingly, Ipsos included Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane on its survey even though she is not a politician. Respondents gave her 4.3 points.
Others included in the survey were ANC Treasurer General Paul Mashatile (4), Deputy Secretary General Jessie Duarte (3.9) and Secretary General Ace Magashule (3.7).
In terms of political parties, Ipsos found that the ANC is still the party of choice for 55% of respondents.
DA is a distant second (13%), followed by EFF (8%), IFP (2%), FF+ (1%) and other parties (3%). 6% of respondents chose no political party.
Ipsos said it conducted the survey through “in-home and in home language, face-to-face interviews with a randomly selected sample of 3,600 adult South Africans.”
It added, “Interviews were done in all types of geographies – from big cities to remote rural areas and the results are representative of the views of the South African population of voting age.”
To see the full results on its website, click here.