A new poll by the Social Research Foundation (SRF)*/The Common Sense asked South Africans whether they believe the country is heading in the right direction or the wrong direction.

Among black South Africans, 75% say the country is heading in the wrong direction, while 19% say it is moving in the right direction.

Among coloured South Africans, 73% say the country is heading in the wrong direction. Twenty-three percent say it is moving in the right direction.

Among white South Africans, 74% say the country is heading in the wrong direction, while 23% say it is moving in the right direction.

Indian South Africans record the highest level of pessimism in the survey. Ninety percent say the country is heading in the wrong direction, while 10% say it is moving in the right direction.

Among all South Africans, 75.2% believe the country is heading in the wrong direction while 19.7% believe the country is moving in right direction.

Warwick Grey, senior editor of The Common Sense, said, “A first thing to understand is that direction-of-travel data are testing whether people feel their aspirations have been met and as a consequence, across the world, scores on this indicator are generally fairly low. However, in South Africa, the scores are particularly low for the reason that for the better part of the past 15 years, living standards have largely stagnated.”

“Consider for example that whereas around seven million net new jobs were created in the first 15 years after 1994, only around two million net new jobs have been created in the 15 years to today.”

“Consider also that real per capita GDP has fallen for much of the past 15 years.”

Grey said that any lift in the direction-of-travel indicator would likely need to be preceded by a sharp uptick in the fixed investment rate because that is what informs the rate of economic growth, and the line between that and the material circumstances of South Africa’s people is pretty direct.

*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.