Recent polling* conducted by the Social Research Foundation, in conjunction with The Common Sense, shows that South Africans across income groups most strongly associate the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) with spreading hatred.

In that poll, respondents were asked which political party they most strongly associate with the phrase “spreads hatred”.

• •Among the abject poor, those earning less than R2 000 a month, 33% most strongly associated the EFF with the phrase “spreads hatred”, compared with 21% for the African National Congress (ANC) and 13% for the Democratic Alliance (DA).
• •Among respondents earning more than R20 000 a month, 81% most strongly associated the EFF with the phrase “spreads hatred”, compared with 1% for the ANC and 5% for the DA.
• •Across all respondents, 42% most strongly associated the EFF with the phrase “spreads hatred”, compared with 12% for the ANC and 13% for the DA.

The Common Sense has long argued that, beneath the noise of political rhetoric and the amplification of extreme voices, most South Africans are neither in the main ideological nor radical. They are, instead, pragmatic, centrist, and grounded in a shared sense of what is reasonable.

*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.