There was hope that he could rekindle SA like Mbeki did because quite honestly Mbeki was the best we had in a long time. Govt debt was being reduced, SAA was one of the top rated airlines in the world, the rand was starting to recover somewhat (do consider we shed 7.8% of value against the dollar annually since the 1970s). Yip Mbeki was starting to get things working. And then came Zuma and messed it up and quite honestly Ramaphosa has just messed it up even more than Zuma ever could.