Democracy enjoyed "relatively" wide support in southern Africa and there was strong resistance to a return to the authoritarian rule of the past.
This was the conclusion of a survey co-ordinated by the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa) in five southern African countries, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Malawi and Zambia, last year and Lesotho this year.
The survey, entitled Public Opinion and the Consolidation of Democracy in Southern Africa, is now being conducted in South Africa, the last country to be surveyed in the first round of the project.
Idasa said there was widespread support for democracy in the region, except in Lesotho, where large numbers, although not expressing authoritarian attitudes, showed an indifference and apathy towards their form of government.
Most of those interviewed felt their multi-party governments were responsible for significant increases in political freedom, but were less sure if these governments had brought more personal or economic security compared with the regimes they replaced.
Idasa said many people were positive about what democracy stood for, but state and government institutions received mixed ratings when it came to trust, responsiveness, official corruption and job performance.
"In fact, many southern Africans feel that the performance of their present governments is no better, or even worse, than their former authoritarian governments on these four dimensions."
Many people said present governments could not use the legacies of past regimes as an excuse for policy failures or slowness of delivery. Idasa said that pending a detailed comparison of results with findings from elsewhere in the world, it was found that there were relatively low levels of political interest and political participation.
"The average respondent feels able to exert control over their own personal life, but when it comes to politics they feel they do not have enough information about government, and are unable to understand what goes on in politics and government," Idasa said.
However, southern Africans tended to retain a sense of optimism about the positive potential of the vote, and the importance of winning political power through elections.
"The larger message for democracy advocates and educators is that the most important areas of priority for work do not appear to lie in convincing southern Africans about the value of democracy, but rather on building the habits of democratic citizenship."
According to the profiles of the attitudes of the citizens of the six countries, Botswana appeared to be a maturing democracy.
Its state and government institutions enjoyed fairly high levels of trust and overall job approval.
The large majority of Batswana wanted their government to prioritise job creation and smaller, though significant, proportions mentioned Aids and education as key areas needing government action.
The report said that although the Batswana were not politically interested, they retained their faith in the positive impact of elections and voting. In Lesotho, citizens' attitudes were relatively negative or pessimistic about democracy.
"It is difficult to say whether this is the result of basic cultural predisposition to politics and authority, or is more a reflection of popular reactions to the current political crisis in Lesotho," Idasa said.
The results from Malawi showed that that country had promising signs of the ability to move to a political system where democracy was widely legitimised.
"Yet, the overall results mask important regional cleavages and significant pockets of support for authoritarian rule that are only visible once one looks at the results on a regional basis."
While large majorities of Malawians said democracy was always preferable, the highest levels of "authoritarian nostalgia" in the survey were found in Malawi.
The study found results from Namibia to be strange because it was the only country where the perceived supply of democracy by the political system was higher than citizens' demands for democracy.
It said Namibians were the most satisfied with their overall political system.
Democracy was widely supported in Zambia and there were relatively high levels of the perceived supply of democracy. There was little desire to return to the past regime of one-party rule and little interest in other non-democratic alternatives, the survey found.
The survey in Zimbabwe, which was conducted before parliamentary elections in June, showed a high demand for democracy, yet there was a low degree of perceived "supply" of democracy from their political system.
Idasa said there was a widespread sense of disillusionment and cynicism about that country's political system.
Many Zimbabweans saw the government as being no different from the old white regime in terms of trust, performance, corruption, and responsiveness. - Sapa