Citizen Surveys: President Ramaphosa is SA’s most favourite politician

Citizen Surveys, a marketing and social research consultancy, has released its findings from the South African Citizens Survey (SACS) and in spite of the troubles facing the country, President Cyril Ramaphosa has retained his title as Mzansi’s most favourite politician.

According to the SA Citizens Survey 64% of South Africans think that President @CyrilRamaphosa Ramaphosa is doing his job well ☺️ ??♥️ pic.twitter.com/LfjHKCQ9U2

— Khusela Diko?? (@KhuselaS) February 9, 2020

President Ramaphosa gets high favourability rating in SA Citizens Survey

Ramaphosa took over the Presidency’s seat with the country already in a nosedive. Eskom has, since his occupancy, been on a steady decline with its infrastructure barely coping with the country’s power demands.

His efforts to attract foreign investments have yielded some positives. However, political and fiscal uncertainty has hampered his ambitions.

Still, the SA Citizens Survey collated from a nationally-representative sample of 1 300 respondents, tagged Ramaphosa with the highest favourability rating (61%) among his peers which include:

• Deputy President David Mabuza (24%);
• Finance Minister Tito Mboweni (33%);
• Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan (28%);
• ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule (13%);
• DA interim leader John Steenhuisen (15%); and
• EFF leader Julius Malema (26%).

Reza Omar, the Strategic Research Director at Citizen Surveys, noted that while Ramaphosa has had a rocky start to his presidential tenure, he has only dropped 1% in his favourability rating since the 2019 general elections.

“It’s interesting to note that President Cyril Ramaphosa continues to retain the highest favourability rating (61%) amongst the major political figures surveyed by SACS. President Ramaphosa’s favourability rating reached a high point of 62% at the period of the National and Provincial elections. In the successive period the President has, despite all the challenges facing him and the country, maintained these very high ratings,” Omar said.

How was this data collected?

The SA Citizens Survey has been running for about five years. The purpose of this research is “to stay in touch with current events in South Africa and the day-to-day reality experienced by citizens.”

“Sample weights are developed, based on the multi-stage stratified sample design and the most recent Statistics South Africa estimates of the population aged 18 and older to ensure the sample represents the national population with respect to province, population group, gender, age and area type.”

Citizen Surveys, SA Citizens Survey 2020

The research’s quarterly data is collated from 3 900 respondents which, according to the SA Citizens Survey, “produces results with a margin of error margin of error of ±1.5 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.”