Polling stations are open across South Africa, and the mood among many residents is blunt: enough is enough.
Voters speaking to the BBC are not mincing words about what has driven them to the ballot box. The frustration is not about politics in the abstract. It is about the very real, daily experience of services that have let communities down, from water supply to basic infrastructure.
The African National Congress is feeling the weight of that dissatisfaction as local elections get underway. For a party that has governed since the end of apartheid, the pressure to show it can still deliver for ordinary South Africans has never felt more urgent.
What happens next at the local level could signal something much bigger for the country's political future.
Originally published by BBC Africa.