New polling shows no clear majority in favour of aligning South Africa’s foreign policy either with the West or against it. This is according to poll data produced by The Common Sense and the Social Research Foundation in March*.

On the question of whether the Government of National Unity should align South Africa’s foreign policy with the West and against countries such as Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia, opposition outweighs support. A combined 54.0% of respondents disagreed with this position, including 41.4% who disagreed strongly and 12.6% somewhat. By contrast, 34.4% supported alignment with the West, with 22.6% strongly in favour and 11.8% somewhat. A further 10.8% said they did not know.

A mirrored question testing support for aligning South Africa against the West and in favour of countries such as Russia and China produced a similarly sceptical response. Here, 46.7% of respondents opposed such a shift, including 37.0% strongly and 9.7% somewhat. Support stood at 40.9%, with 28.7% strongly in favour and 12.2% somewhat, while 11.5% were undecided.

The findings indicate that South Africans may be wary of hard alignment in either direction, with significant resistance to framing foreign policy as a binary choice between Western and non-Western blocs.

There is likely a lesson in that, for South Africa’s political and corporate leaders alike. The country’s people are in favour of a pragmatic foreign policy that delivers material benefits to the country regardless of the ideological orientation of the trade or investment partner in question.

*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.