Community protest in South Africa is Janus-faced. It is the relatively benevolent partner to electoral behaviour and a valve to vent frustration whilst continuously supporting and voting for the ANC. It is also the dark side behaviour that couples with anarchy, criminal lawlessness, contests between rival ANC associated leaders, and the nurturing of alternative formations of political authority in the absence of tangible, effective local government.

Protest in South Africa has overwhelmingly not been used in rejection of (mostly ANC) elected government. Rather, protest has frequently been used to pressurise the elected ANC government to do more, to deliver on election promises, to replace local leaders or as a minimum, it has been used to extract promises and reassurances from ANC government. South Africans have crafted protest to supplement the vote, not to substitute for voting. Protest has been occurring overwhelmingly in metropolitan, urban and medium-size municipalities, in township and informal settlement areas where a large proportion of South Africa's black-African population – anchor of the ANC support base – lives.

Protest signified both continuously poor local government and debilitating ANC internal battles. The post-Polokwane ANC and the Zuma administration had reeled with shock in mid-2009 when a range of community protests greeted the ANC following its convincing re-election. Much of the 2009 campaign success was, after all, because of the distance it had put between itself and the preceding Mbeki order. It had, for the brief interregnum from December 2007 until April 2009, imagined that it was truly new, and that past imperfections would be buried with the exorcised Mbeki regime.

The ANCs 2009 campaign had promised urgent attention to delivery problems.