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South Africa is reaching the midway point between the 2024 and 2029 national elections, and as it does so, two data sets show that popular confidence in the Government of National Unity (GNU) is slipping as the African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Alliance (DA) fail to drive reforms to improve the lives of people.

The chart below tracks Social Research Foundation data from July of 2022 to July of 2026 on whether South African believe the country is moving in the right direction or the wrong direction.

It is immediately apparent that opinion is overwhelmingly deeply pessimistic about the direction of travel. Roughly eight in 10 people say the country is going the wrong way and two in 10 say the right way, and that has held true since 2022. However, in the run-up to the May 2024 election voter sentiment was shifting slightly positive and then, in the immediate aftermath of the vote, and the formation of the GNU, sentiment moved sharply more positive. But that confidence slowly drained as the GNU stalled on reforms to settle back into the pre-May 2024 economic status quo.

The second chart tracks opinion on whether the GNU is working well. What that means was not spelled out to survey respondents – so it is entirely their perceptions and may mean something as basic as that a complete collapse of the economy and law and order has been avoided (the infamous “doomsday” scenario).

Very much along the lines of the first chart, sentiment has slipped over the past two years, with the share of respondents saying the GNU is working well down by roughly ten percentage points to where less than half of South Africans think it is working well, while the share who say it is not working well is up from 21% in September of 2024 to 34% in July of 2026.

What is the reason for that?

“It is all in the economy and living standards,” Bheki Mahlobo told The Common Sense.

“South Africa’s economic growth outlook has not improved under the GNU because the government has not driven the necessary key reforms and as a consequence the frustration that was directed at the ANC pre-2024 is now coming to be directed at the broader GNU,” Mahlobo said.

Can that change?

Mahlobo says that it is deceptively easy to turn South Africa’s economy around and secure popular confidence in the government.

According to him, “South Africa’s rate of economic growth is holding at very low levels compared to virtually all our peer economies, but with just the most elementary reforms to electricity policy, oil and gas policy, and rail and ports policy, South Africa could quickly lift its growth rate from the current number of near 1% of GDP to nearer 3%.”

Under those circumstances, Mahlobo says, “popular confidence in the government will quickly be restored because that is the pattern we have seen in South Africa’s economic and political data of the past three decades, where, as growth lifts and living standards improve, so support for the government of the day lifts”.

According to Mahlobo, “The question of whether that is going to happen or not hinges to a great degree on whether Patrice Motsepe steps up as ANC leader. Many mainstream analysts say he is not interested in that and won’t do it, but we have a different read on that. We continue to pick up a sense that if there is a clean way to the top of the ANC he will take it and will emerge as South Africa’s next president, and if he does, I am fairly confident that the national growth track is going to lift.”