Every national leader, scored across up to eight dimensions of tenure contribution — from governance and economy to politics and crisis response. Compare current form against the legacy they'll leave behind.
Jacob Zuma served as President of South Africa. Jacob Zuma holds a weak Legacy Rating of 49 out of 100.
The data & sources
The Legacy Rating of 49 is a derived blend of Jacob Zuma's leadership dimensions, each computed from sourced public inputs — none estimated. Diplomatic Conduct — no country-level data; shown as "No data" rather than inferred. Governing-stability conditions score 58/100, renormalised over WGI, V-Dem and UCDP.
The risk read
For country-risk purposes, Jacob Zuma's tenure reads as moderately stable: governing-stability conditions score 58/100. Crisis exposure 52/100 (Moderate exposure); response 65/100 (Fared better than comparable crises). For the full opportunity, market-pulse and resilience read, see South Africa's nation page.
The strategic read
Governing conditions: stability 58/100. The sharpest institutional vulnerability is Governance (38/100).
Crisis
Exposure
52/ 100
Moderate exposure
Response
65/ 100
Fared better than comparable crises
Medium confidence · 1 crisis year in mandate
Worst year (2009) — shock drivers
Economic contraction83
Political-stability decline39
Each is a global percentile: how this year's shock compares to every country-year on record. Disaster shocks are not yet sourced (no open-licensed annual series).
Sourced from 10 mandate-years (2009–2018), 2 of 4 shock components present; damage ranked against 435 comparable crises.
Leadership Radar
Tenure Contribution
Uneven profile — 27-point spread from Crisis Response to Governance.
Country scores are blended with live World Bank data where available. Difficulty reflects the structural challenge of governing this nation — not the leader's individual performance.
Source: World Bank·Method: Unweighted average·✓ Reconstructable
Leadership Archetype
No distinct archetype
Uneven profile — 27-point spread from Crisis Response to Governance. No archetype rule matches that shape. This is a reading of the sourced stats — not a data gap.
SourceDerivedMethodRule-based classificationConfDeterministic✓ ReconstructableⓘArchetypes are derived automatically from the leadership stat profile — not hand-assigned. "No distinct archetype" means no classification rule matched; profile shape is assessed separately from the best-to-worst spread. A leader lacking enough sourced stats reads as "No data". A secondary archetype is added only when a stat scores exceptionally high.
Political Legacy
Legacy Rating
49
Assessment
ContestedDerivedDerived from the published Legacy Rating band — ≥84 Transformational · 72–83 Lasting · 60–71 Mixed · 42–59 Contested · <42 Negative.
Years Served
8
Peak Strengths
No dimension scored 70 or above.
Relative Weaknesses
Governance38
Institutional Integrity44
Economy48
Post-Office Metrics
Macro Tailwind/Headwind Adjustment
Compare this leader
Stack this leader against any other in the NationsHelm database.
One email a week — the predictions that resolved and the scores that moved on the nations and leaders you follow.
Key questions
Who is Jacob Zuma?
Jacob Zuma is a former President of South Africa, from the African National Congress.
How is Jacob Zuma rated on NationsHelm?
Jacob Zuma holds a weak Legacy Rating of 49 out of 100. It is a derived blend of sourced leadership dimensions — governance, communication, diplomacy and others — never an estimate.
Data coverage:107 Sourced·85 Derived|Scores refreshed: 2026-08-24·snap-20260824-c9f25cd0|Methodology:Reconstructable|Cite:How to cite
Spot an error?
Weighted average
ConfMedium
✓ Reconstructable
ⓘLegacy Rating is the completed-tenure rating derived from sourced leadership dimensions and the recorded conditions of that tenure — on the published scale a score near 60 means the country broadly matched the benchmark trajectory over the mandate. Anything unsourced shows as no data. Full weights on the Methodology page.
Source
World Bank GDP + UCDP deaths (annual + Candidate GED) + WGI stability
ⓘCrisis Exposure measures how severely a leader was tested — a peak-biased aggregate of per-year shock severity (conflict intensity, economic contraction and political-stability decline vs. recent normal) over the mandate. It is context, not a verdict: high exposure is neither good nor bad on its own. Crisis Response measures how the country fared during its genuine crisis years relative to comparable crisis episodes worldwide — country-years hit with the same shock severity. Higher = less national damage than peers at that severity. Leaders who never faced a major shock are marked Untested rather than rewarded. Per country-year, real WB/UCDP/WGI shocks are winsorised and percentile-ranked into a ShockSeverity; Exposure is the peak-biased mandate aggregate. Crisis years (severity ≥ 60) score Response = 100 − damage percentile among comparable-severity crises worldwide, then severity-weighted over the mandate. Untested = no major shock (never rewarded). Absent components are reweighted, never filled.
Politics
61
Crisis Response
65
Vision
50
Communication
—
Institutional Integrity
44
Source: World Bank + derived·Method: Contribution·✓ ReconstructableⓘEach dimension measures change under the leader relative to global trends — how the indicator moved over their tenure, net of the world's move over the same window — not the country's absolute level. A score near 60 means performance broadly matched the benchmark trajectory; above = improved the country's standing, below = declined. Governance / Economy / Politics / Institutional Integrity from World Bank WGI, WDI and V-Dem trajectories; Vision from the country's innovation rank (WIPO patents + UNESCO tertiary), former leaders only (patents lag ~3 years); Crisis Response (World Bank + UCDP + WGI, an absolute response-quality scale) and Communication (GDELT) from tenure signals; Diplomacy (Diplomatic Conduct) is active-only. A tenure under six months, or an indicator whose series hasn't reached the term, shows as no data. Full model on the Methodology page.
Stewardship
Inherited-strength lens · separate from the rating
—
Governance
—
Politics
—
Integrity
—
Innovation
—
0 of 4 groups eligible and sourced
Source: World Bank WGI + V-Dem + derived·Method: Stewardship·✓ ReconstructableⓘMeasures whether strong institutions inherited at the start of the tenure were preserved, improved or eroded. It does not reward the leader for inheriting a strong country. A metric qualifies only when the inherited baseline was at least 75 on its normalized scale; the score is the world-net change over the tenure on the single public scale (60 = preserved relative to global movement). Requires two or more eligible sourced groups, the six-month tenure floor and a post-tenure-start observation — otherwise No data, never a zero. Weights mirror the current-form groups (gov 0.17 · pol 0.15 · int 0.08 · vis 0.09), renormalized over what is eligible and sourced.
Strengths & Weaknesses
Top Strengths
Key Weaknesses
Governance38
State management and policy execution capacity
Institutional Integrity44
Perceived transparency and anti-corruption track record
Economy48
Economic stewardship, growth, and macro stability
Vision50
Strategic foresight and long-term reform capacity
ⓘ
Country scores are the unweighted average of scored World Bank indicators — the same model used on the nation's own page. Difficulty reflects structural constraints on governing this nation, independent of the current leader.
—
External conditions during tenure
Source: Derived·Method: Ranked by stat value·✓ ReconstructableⓘUp to 5 strengths (dimensions scoring 70+) and 5 weaknesses (scoring 57 or below), ranked from the leadership radar. Dimensions in the 58–69 benchmark band appear in neither column. Descriptions are fixed per dimension and don't vary by country. Dimensions without a sourced signal show as no data. Full model on the Methodology page.
Jacob Zuma Legacy Rating: 49/100 — President, South Africa (2009–2018) | NationsHelm