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There are political data available that track the favourability of political leaders and their parties as well as voting intention and coalition preferences. None of that is definitive enough to reach finite conclusions on what the effect the jailing of the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) may be, but it does lean towards the conclusion that the party would be decimated and that the African National Congress (ANC) would be the net beneficiary thereof.

Start with personal popularity.

Polling* conducted by the Social Research Foundation and The Common Sense in the first quarter of the year shows that 22% of voters hold a favourable view of Malema, while 50% hold an unfavourable one. That is already a weak base. A criminal conviction, in a country where social attitudes remain broadly conservative, is unlikely to improve perceptions and a fair assumption might be to push his unfavourability higher and thereby reduce his appeal further.

Only 25% of black voters view the EFF favourably, while 44% view it unfavourably. That suggests a shallow and movable support base in its key constituency.

Next to consider is the dominance that Malema wields over the EFF, to the extent that it is virtually a cult of personality.

The EFF’s support is tied closely to Malema himself. Over time, the party has been shaped around him, with rivals removed and internal depth thinned out. There is no obvious second line with comparable authority or recognition. If he is removed from public life, even temporarily, the party loses its central organising force, and the consequence must be for the party’s support to diminish.

Actual voting intention numbers point to the scale of the risk.

Among likely voters, EFF support stands at around 6%. It is plausible that, without Malema in active politics, that support could fall sharply, say by two thirds, potentially to around 2%. That would leave roughly four percentage points of support in play for other parties possibly to gobble up.

There is a directional signal to where that support would go in coalition preference data.

Among EFF voters, a deal with the ANC is the preferred option and is roughly twice as popular an option as a deal with the uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK). That suggests that, if EFF support is released back into the system, a larger share may flow toward the ANC than MK. The data are not firm enough to make that conclusion definitively, but the direction to which they point is clear.

The upshot therefore is that should Malema be forced to serve a term of imprisonment, the effect would be to greatly erode support for the EFF, the bulk of which would flow back to the ANC with a smaller share fragmenting towards MK.

*The Social Research Foundation Q1 2026 Market Survey was commissioned by the Social Research Foundation supported by The Common Sense and conducted by Victory Research using a nationally representative telephonic CATI survey of registered voters (N=2,222), with metro samples upsized to over 500 respondents each in Johannesburg (n=503), Tshwane (n=510), and eThekwini (n=503). Fieldwork was conducted between 16 February 2026 and 6 March 2026 using a single-frame random digit dialling sampling design that draws from all possible South African mobile numbers, ensuring equal probability of selection and near-universal coverage given SIM penetration above 250%, more than 90% adult phone ownership, and mobile network coverage of 99.8% of the population. Respondents were screened to include registered voters only, and turnout modelling assigned each respondent a probability of voting based on likelihood indicators, with the primary model assuming turnout of 56.0%. Data were weighted to ensure the national sample reflects the demographic profile of the registered voter population across language, age, race, gender, location (urban/rural), education, and income, while metro samples were weighted to the demographic composition of voters in each metro. Results are reported at a 95% confidence level with a design effect (DEFF) of 1.762, producing margins of error of 2.1% nationally and 4.4% for each metro sample.