Is the ANC losing its grip on South Africa?

Many Bitou residents feel the ANC has not done enough for them Related StoriesZuma to face leadership challengeD-Day looms for South Africa's Jacob ZumaProfile: South Africa's Kgalema Motlanthe Stunning beaches, impoverished townships, vast potential and a persistent sense of crisis - welcome to Bitou, a place that seems to encapsulate many of South Africa's enduring contradictions.

But could this isolated, sun-drenched, struggling municipality also represent something more intriguing? Might it just be a weather vane for the nation's future political direction at a time of growing uncertainty?

Memory Booysens is rather hoping so.

Mr Booysens - a lean, nattily dressed 43 year-old - is the new mayor of Bitou, a township near the resort of Plettenberg Bay, 530km (330 miles) from Cape Town. He's also, in the colourful assessment of his former colleagues from the African National Congress - the party that has run South Africa since democracy prevailed 18 years ago - "a perpetual liar, a traitor and a political prostitute".

Mr Booysens earned those insults by swapping sides. And winning.

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