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Motsepe was asked a few days ago by a journalist from France24 if he would say “no” to reports that he is considering running for South Africa’s presidency.

He answered, “South Africa has exceptional leaders, both within the ANC [African National Congress] and outside, and I’ve said now on numerous occasions that what the country needs now is for all of us to unite, to come together, to extend our cooperation beyond party-political affiliations and commitment, and we are very clear, I am very clear, that the best place for me to make my humble contribution … is outside politics. I mean, we give money to all political parties, and we work with all political parties.”

Pressed by the question “So you are not going to run for president?”, Motsepe said, “I don’t have to make a contribution, fulfil my duty, on a political platform. […] The best way we can do that is to maintain our humble relationships and let them go and campaign. The ANC will have a good leader … whoever that leader will be I will support and I will continue to work together with all the other political parties in South Africa.”.

While Motsepe could obviously not announce off the cuff that he is running and needed to word his answers carefully to land between a denial and a confirmation, The Common Sense understands that the Motsepe camp is considering a leadership run and that its chief concern is how to get Motsepe through the ANC’s December 2027 leadership conference. The run-up to that conference will be both violent and corrupt and his camp wants no part in any of that. Should a way be seen through or around the conference, then a run is under consideration.

The Common Sense, in conjunction with the Social Research Foundation (SRF) has polled Mr Motsepe at length and new data on him will be out before the end of the month.

At the end of the first quarter of 2026, The Common Sense found that Motsepe was the only ANC leadership candidate with a net positive favourability score. That means that more voters view him positively than negatively. See the chart below.

The Common Sense has also found that Motsepe is the most popular figure among all voters, and ANC voters, to succeed Cyril Ramaphosa.

At the end of the first quarter of this year, The Common Sense, in conjunction with the SRF, asked ANC voters who they wanted to succeed Ramaphosa as leader of the party.

The results show that Motsepe was the clear favourite among ANC voters, with 47.0% saying they preferred him as Ramaphosa’s successor.

Fikile Mbalula, the secretary-general of the party, followed on 19.0%, ahead of Deputy President Paul Mashatile on 16.0%.

No other candidate drew the support of more than 5% of those polled.

Motsepe is so far ahead of any of his rivals that his running presents the only real prospect that the ANC has to stage an economic and political recovery.

On the balance of probabilities, The Common Sense has argued that it will be a simple matter for a decisive ANC leader, of even mildly reformist inclination, to take South Africa’s rate of economic growth to between 2% and 3%, and that this should be sufficient for the ANC to restore its national majority. Along those lines, and in scenarios published this week, The Common Sense argued that the only real prospect of South Africa becoming a high-growth and centrally governed emerging market hinged on a successful Motsepe run. You can read those scenarios here together with their economic and political projections.