SOUTH AFRICA: Most South Africans, both black and white, believe the country was better run under apartheid and say unemployment and crime are the government's top challenges, according to two new polls released this week.
The polls, part of the "Afrobarometer" series of public opinion surveys, found South Africans had generally positive assessments of how their country was governed, and were growing increasingly optimistic about the future.
They revealed a growing sense of "apartheid nostalgia" as South Africa grapples with high crime rates, increasing corruption and rising joblessness following the end of white rule in 1994.
"It's not that they want to return to apartheid, but in retrospect it was a time when trains ran on time," poll director Robert Mattes said on Wednesday. "It was a harsh, repressive, but seemingly efficient government." Overall, the polls showed that about 60 percent of South Africans felt the country was better run under apartheid, with both blacks and whites rating the current government less trustworthy, more corrupt, less able to enforce the law and less able to deliver government services than its white predecessor.
The surveys found respondents giving more positive assessment of apartheid-era policies.
Whites had the highest levels of nostalgia, with 65 per cent now identifying positive elements to whites-only rule compared with 59 per cent in 2000 and 39 per cent in 1995.
Despite growing nostalgia for the past, the poll found South Africans becoming more positive about their government and its direction for the future - although they rate unemployment, poverty, crime and AIDS as serious challenges.
A total of 54 per cent now gave positive marks to the country's current system of government, up 18 points from 1995.