On a stretch of grass doubling as a parking lot in an impoverished Johannesburg township, a group of party activists chanted "we need new leaders!" timidly followed by a couple of dozen onlookers.
"Rise Songezo, Rise!" they continued before introducing Songezo Zibi, the head of Rise Mzansi -- a small party among a cohort of new groups competing in an increasingly fragmented opposition camp ahead of South Africa's general elections on May 29.
Unusually for a political leader, the former journalist then made his pitch promising nothing at all.
"I'm not going to lie and say to you... we are going to solve all your problems. It's not going to happen," Zibi told would-be-voters during a canvassing exercise in Eden Park, south of Johannesburg, on Friday.
The low-key strategy is a result of broad disillusionment with politics after three decades of African National Congress (ANC)-rule.
Thirty years after the former liberation movement won the first democratic elections, South Africa remains the world's most unequal nation, suffering from high unemployment, rampant crime, widespread corruption and a stagnant economy.
"People don't........