The 100-days benchmark for assessing presidential leadership is pretty silly even as it becomes increasingly common. In the United States there is at least a bit of historical salience given Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Hundred Days” of frenzied New Deal activity. In May, when I was a fellow at Keele University’s David Bruce Centre for American Studies I participated on a round table on President Obama’s First Hundred Days and basically made the case that the whole endeavor is flawed and tells us very little.
Nonetheless, South Africans have taken up the 100 days standard and are now using it on Zuma. The Mail & Guardian sees Zuma in the midst of a “baptism by fire” and without saying so bluntly, seems to find him wanting. Sibusiso Ngalwa of the Cape Argus takes a more charitable view. My own take is that 100 days is too small a sample to be sure that Zuma even knows where all of the restrooms are located, never mind to make any sort of substantial assessment of his presidency, which is likely to play out over the next decade.
