Analyst: Mbeki’s enduring popularity due to decisiveness
Political analyst Goodenough Mashego says former president Thabo Mbeki’s enduring popularity among South Africans is due to his perceived decisiveness during his time at the Union Buildings.
A new survey by the Social Research Foundation revealed Mbeki as the most favoured political leader in the country.
Mbeki scored 57.5%, while current President Cyril Ramaphosa scored 44.4% favourability.
The survey measured the opinions of 1 412 people.
The former president’s popularity score increased by just over 4% compared to March, where he scored 53%.
Mbeki’s popularity comes in spite of him being the ANC's most prominent critic in recent years.
“I think Thabo Mbeki being popular at the level of 57.5% speaks to the lack of decisiveness on the part of Cyril Ramaphosa because since he came into power, there has not really been any decisiveness on anything, on unemployment, on the ballooning debt, the July unrest happened under his tenor and Phala Phala is something that is his to handle,” said Mashego.
“I think you can’t pin a scandal on Thabo Mbeki except his denialism (on HIV/AIDS), but you cannot say that he was indecisive because people like Tony Yengeni were even sentenced to jail under his leadership, Mbulelo Goniwe was expelled as a member of the ANC.
“So, I think this is a reflection of what people are missing both as South Africans and even those within the ANC, to say they are missing a leader who is decisive even if that decisiveness speaks his heart at the members of his own party”.
Mashego said there was also not one dominant race in his cabinet.
Mbeki scored moderately among all race groups surveyed by the company, with black people responding at 60%, whites 45%, coloured 53%, and Indians 54%.
His popularity in the ANC remains high, with party supporters scoring him 70%, DA supporters giving him 45% and EFF supporters 53%.
“It should not be a surprise that Thabo Mbeki’s popularity cuts across. It would be much across black people because most of the black middle class was lifted out of poverty during his tenure between 1999 and 2007. So black people love him because he lifted a lot of them and gave them hope that if you had an idea, it could actually result in you becoming affluent,” said Mashego.
“But the biggest beneficiaries of that stage were white people because they owned the retail shops, the banking, the insurance, the property companies, no wonder that they would like him. Even across Indians, during Thabo Mbeki's time, there was no issue of Indian, Black, Coloured, even when they looked at his government, you couldn’t really point out to one race dominating.”
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