South Africa's ANC faces voter backlash

Impassable roads, crater-like potholes, burst water pipes, mountains of trash, and grinding poverty are part of everyday life in South Africa's communities. So too are unemployment, hunger, and crime.

The latest wave of violence targeting foreign nationals has claimed several lives since April and forced more than 176,000 people to flee South Africa, most of them returning to their home countries of neighboring Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique.

At the recently concluded Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Durban, the vigilante group March and March again called for migrants to leave South Africa .

"Come and take your people back," its members urged the governments of neighboring countries, while police moved to contain the protests.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said ahead of the summit that he was "concerned and ashamed" that citizens of other countries had been subjected to abuse and violence and had been forced to flee.

According to Fredson Guilengue of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, growing anti-migrant sentiment is a symptom of deeper public discontent.

"This reflects their frustration, particularly with the ANC's failure at both the national and local levels to create jobs, tackle inequality, reduce crime and improve living conditions," Guilengue told DW. "In the [November 4] elections, South Africans will express their deep frustration over the lack of public services, inadequate infrastructure and poverty."

The African National Congress (ANC), Nelson Mandela's former liberation party , is on course to perform even worse than in the 2024 general election , when it suffered a historic setback, winning 40.2% of the vote, Guilengue notes.