After suffering its worst election result, what's next for the ANC — and for South Africa?

A crushing local election result across the country has left South Africa's ruling ANC searching for answers. Experts say the vote reflects public frustration with service delivery failures — signaling a political shift.

This outcome marks a steep decline for the party that had once led South Africa's liberation struggle; the party that had dominated the country's political landscape since the end of apartheid in 1994. The result reflects growing public frustration about the ANC's lack of performance in key areas such as skyrocketing unemployment, poor service delivery, local governance failures and years of graft and corruption — sometimes at the highest levels of government.

Tasnim Essop, a researcher at the Society, Work and Politics Institute (SWOP) at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, says it is time for the party to undertake some serious introspection. She believes that the ANC has to confront a long list of difficult questions about governance, leadership and accountability.