Trust in Mugabe rapidly declines

Trust in Mugabe rapidly declines - survey

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By Donwald Pressly

A NEW survey shows that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe enjoys the trust of only 19% of urban dwellers in his country and just 37% in rural areas - or just 31% overall.

It also finds that after government newspapers and the electoral commission, the president and his ruling Zanu-PF were the least trusted public institutions in the country.

An Afrobarometer survey - carried out randomly among 1,096 respondents who were nationally representative and a purposeful sub-sample of 104 respondents comprising victims of the government's operation Murambatsvina/Restore Order - states: "The general picture portrayed is that of low trust in the president by the urban community."

The survey - conducted between October 9 and 26 last year - however, shows a rise in support for Mugabe in 2004 from pitiful levels in 1999.

The survey prepared by Eldred Masunungure, Anyway Ndapwadza, Noma Sibanda and Naume Choguya shows that trust in the public face of Zimbabwe - the president - dropped 15 percentage points from nearly half or 47% of all survey respondents in 2004 to less than a third - 31% in 2005.

This - they say - must be read in conjunction with his job approval rating which dropped from a respectable 58% in 2004 - which was described as "a dramatic recovery" from a low of only 21% in 1999 - to only 26% in 2005, a 32 percentage point drop in approval rating.

In 1999 the survey showed that 17% in urban areas trusted the president while 21% in rural areas trusted him - either a lot of somewhat.

In 2004 these figures jumped to 45% in urban areas and 58% in rural areas. However, these figures dropped to 19% and 37% respectively in 2005.

The survey ascribes the rise in 2004 to the land reform programme - which saw white commercial farms being redistributed - but the drop in trust to the operation Murambatsvina/Restore order - which saw informal businesses and housing devastated by the police.

Significantly trust in public institutions was topped by the courts of law with 53% of respondents saying they trusted the courts.

This was followed by the military with 50%.

Opposition political parties received a 47% approval rating while independent newspapers gained 44%.

Independent broadcasting services notched up 41%, the police just 39%, parliament just 35%, local councils 33%, government broadcasting services 33%, the president and the ruling party just 31%, the Electoral Commission 29% and government newspapers just 28%.

The survey report - issued by Idasa in South Africa - noted that except for the judiciary and the military, none of the institutions surveyed attracted the trust of even half of the adult populace - I-Net Bridge
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