Democratic governance in South Africa: the people’s view

At the time of this report South Africa was eight years into its inclusive democracy. The overall direction and success of this democratic experiment can be judged with various types of evidence. This report focuses on one type, that is, the opinions of South African citizens about the overall direction of their new democracy. Rather than looking to expert judgments or to measures of formal rights, this paper argues that the views of ordinary citizens, as the ultimate consumers of what democratic governments supply, can offer perhaps the most conclusive assessment of the quality of democratic governance.

The paper finds that in general, all South Africans are becoming more positive about the overall democratic regime, and more optimistic about where it will be in ten years time. However, the democratic system enjoys an important, but insufficiently wide base of popular legitimacy.

Some of the key findings of the paper are:

• just two thirds feel that instruments of state authority such as the Courts (68 percent), Police (67 percent) or Revenue Service (60 percent) have the right to make people abide by their decisions and rules
• popular trust in political institutions remains at relatively low levels. Just over one third trust the President (37 percent), just under a third trust Parliament (31 percent), while one quarter trust their Provincial Government (28 percent), Premier (28 percent) or Local Government (24 percent)
• just one half (47 percent) of all South Africans say that the country is fully or largely democratic, down sharply from 60 percent two years ago
• just one in ten feel that elected leaders act in their best interests (13 percent) or listen to what they have to say (11 percent) ‘all’ or ‘most of the time’. More than one third say they ‘never’ do this

One of the positive results to come out of this investigation is that public assessments of the extent of official corruption have improved significantly over the past two years. While large majorities still think corruption exists in government, people seem to think that a smaller proportion of public officials are involved. Following a sharp drop in job approval in 2000, public evaluations of the performance of key political leaders over the past twelve months has remained relatively constant.

Of possibly greatest concern, South Africans across the board seem to feel that the country is being governed no better than it was under the apartheid regime. While much of this may be fuelled by a fading memory of just what life used to be like then, the fact that such perceptions exist signals some deeply rooted problems in how the state and government not only ‘deliver’ services and economic goods to ordinary people, but also how it represents and interacts with citizens.