The survey was conducted after NUMSA president Andrew Chirwa called for the union to ask for Zuma’s resignation. They interviewed 1,997 respondents, between the ages of 18 and 34, across South Africa, and asked them whether they thought Zuma should step down as president. The survey found that of those respondents who claimed to support the ANC, 56% felt Zuma should step down.
These findings are in line with the Sunday Times Ipsos survey released in December, which found that 51% of a representative sample of 1,000 ANC voters wanted President Zuma to resign.
All respondents, regardless of party affiliation, were then asked whether they thought the R203 million spent on Zuma’s Nkandla home in KwaZulu-Natal was his biggest mistake. There was broad agreement that Nkandla was the Zumster’s largest blunder, with 65% of younger people believing this. In comparison, 19% felt there were bigger issues for Zuma than Nkandla. 10% did not consider Nkandla to be a problem for the president.
Looking at responses broken down according to provinces, Nkandla was most likely to be seen as Zuma’s biggest mistake in the Eastern Cape, where 73% of respondents felt it was his most significant problem, and least likely to be seen an error in KwaZulu-Natal, where 51% believed it was his biggest problem, and 21% felt it was not a problem.
