This is a paid article, which your subscription is allowing you to read.

Polling* from The Common Sense and the Social Research Foundation shows that voters have turned against President Cyril Ramaphosa since 2022. In July 2022, 49% of voters felt favourably towards him and 30% were unfavourable. By July 2026 that had flipped: 33% felt favourably towards him and 47% were unfavourable. The chart below shows how voters have rated Ramaphosa in each poll since July 2022.

*The figures come from nine Social Research Foundation Market Surveys of registered voters, each a national telephone poll with results weighted to the voting population. The rounds were: July 2022 (3 204 respondents, design effect 3.17), March 2023 (1 517 respondents, design effect 2.32), October 2023 (1 412 respondents, design effect 3.06), April 2024 (1 835 respondents, design effect 3.19), September 2024 (1 204 respondents, design effect 1.34), February 2025 (1 004 respondents, design effect 2.01), November 2025 (1 002 respondents, design effect 1.76), March 2026 (2 222 respondents, design effect 3.27) and July 2026 (2 214 respondents, design effect 3.79).