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A poll of registered voters in Johannesburg points to an electorate that is not merely dissatisfied, but deeply convinced that the country is heading in the wrong direction.

This is according to a Social Research Foundation (SRF) and The Common Sense survey*, conducted in March, which found that just 10% of respondents believe South Africa is moving in the right direction, with only 4% saying they feel this strongly and a further 6% somewhat. By contrast, a striking 88% say the country is on the wrong path, including 78% who hold this view strongly and 10% somewhat.

Black and white voters were equally down, with 87% of black voters and 86% of white voters saying the country is headed in the wrong direction.

Johannesburg voters were also more down than their peers in the rest of the country. Nationally, a still very high 73% of voters say the country is headed in the wrong direction – a figure that is nonetheless 15 percentage points lower than that for Johannesburg voters.

The scale and intensity of sentiment in Johannesburg is the key finding. It is not simply that more people are negative than positive, but that pessimism is overwhelmingly entrenched. The fact that nearly four in five respondents say they “strongly” believe the country is going in the wrong direction suggests a hardening of views rather than a temporary reaction to current events.

This kind of data matters because direction-of-country indicators are often among the clearest signals of political stability and future electoral behaviour. When strong negative sentiment dominates, it tends to precede volatility in voting patterns, declining trust in institutions, and rising openness to political alternatives.

Yet, despite this kind of data, the African National Congress-led city and provincial government continues to press ahead with the very policies and ideas that have alienated voters. Voting opinion in the country follows living standards more closely than any other indicator, and yet no firm signs of reformist thinking or action have emerged to counter this trend.

If anything, the provincial and city government has continued to double down on ruinous and populist ideas, rejecting the national unity government, pursuing an alternative pact with the Economic Freedom Fighters and uMkhonto weSizwe Party, and rededicating themselves to policies ranging from black economic empowerment to National Health Insurance that have done great damage to confidence and hence investment levels in South Africa.

*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.