South Africa's opposition parties mounted an 11th-hour assault on Sunday on the ruling ANC's 30-year-old grip on power, staging large-scale rallies three days before what promises to be a historic general election.
From the right, the Democratic Alliance (DA) gathered in the town of Benoni outside Johannesburg to cheer on leader John Steenhuisen under a pair of national flags ahead of tomorrow's vote.
The party picked a smaller 20,000-seat stadium than the African National Congress had chosen for its huge Johannesburg rally the day before, but blue-clad supporters amply filled it, kept on their feet by DJs and bands playing amapiano and country songs.
"We don't offer empty promises. We show concrete facts and the facts are undeniable," Steenhuisen told the crowd, shielded from the winter sun by blue umbrellas.
"Today our people are suffering from poverty, unemployment, crime. These disasters are not inevitable but were created by the ANC.
"On Wednesday, the ANC will lose the outright majority it has abused for decades... On Wednesday, we close the ANC chapter of our history."
Opinion polls suggest the white-led DA will not overtake the ANC to become South Africa's biggest single party, but it hopes to unite with a coalition of smaller outfits to take power.
"I want change. It's too bad right now: no jobs, no nothing," said job-seeker Isaac Tembo, 66, who has voted for the ANC every five years since the advent of democracy in 1994.
From the left, former president Jacob Zuma, not legally a candidate because of a conviction for contempt of court, is marshalling his uMkonto weSizwe (MK) party for a final push.
Zuma, who served as the ANC's fourth president between 2009 and 2018 but left office dogged by graft allegations, cannot stand for election but may still take votes from his former party.
He addressed a final weekend rally in one of the ANC's rural strongholds, in Emalahleni in the eastern province of Mpumalanga.
"There are many parties out there that will be voting with us because it is us, the black nation, that has been struggling.
"It is D-day. We are going to win it by a two-thirds majority and become a country that is better than it is now."
President Cyril Ramaphosa is the fifth and latest in an unbroken line of African National Congress presidents dating back to Nelson Mandela's post-apartheid victory in 1994.
The ANC retains support among black South Africans grateful for the country's democracy and support for the welfare state and economic empowerment programmes.
But a younger generation, both black and white, which has grown up since the fall of apartheid is troubled by South Africa's power cuts, high crime rate and soaring joblessness.
Polls suggest the ANC could win fewer than 201 seats in the 400-member National Assembly for the first time and be unable to elect a president without support from other parties.
The DA, whose 48-year-old leader Steenhuisen is white, is hoping to capitalise on the discontent with a promise to "Rescue South Africa" through liberal economic reform and privatisations.
The ANC has played on fears that the DA would reverse 30 years of progress on economic and political equality and return power to a wealthy white elite.
But in Benoni, black DA supporters dismissed this fear.
"The DA will do better than ANC who lies," said 42-year-old mother-of-three Maria Choene.
"I don't know why most of us are afraid of the DA. We should give them a chance first and vote them out if they fail, like the ANC."
The opposition is represented by 51 parties large and small on the ballot, and the DA leader would also face a post-election battle to assemble a coalition of MPs to put him in power.
"To drive this economy, the people need a stable government with economic policies that will grow the private sector," said Graham Gersback, 68, a DA councillor at the rally.
The ANC sliding under 50 per cent would put the party and South Africa in uncharted waters, but analysts and opinion polls agree this is the most likely outcome.
* The writer is from Agence France-Presse