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The ANC, fighting to extend its 30-year grip on power in elections this month, would like to cast the government programmes that support Dalene Raiters and her family as a success story.
But the 48-year-old doesn't see it that way.
"The ANC, I don't want to even talk to them," an angry Raiters said from the single room in Johannesburg she shares with her sons and grandson.
"(Nelson) Mandela's dream is not their dream."
"These grants and subsidies do much more than give people what they need to live," President Cyril Ramaphosa said in February. "They are an investment in the future."
But the growing number of people requiring assistance - more than 24 million this year, against a tax base of just 7.1 million - is straining the system.
READ: Multi-Party Charter unveils plans to boost grants, combat poverty and inequality
Its future could depend on who in a field that includes two dominant parties espousing vastly divergent political visions - the EFF or DA - the ANC chooses as a coalition partner if it loses its majority, as polls suggest.
Ann Bernstein, director of the Centre for Development and Enterprise, a Johannesburg-based think-tank, said:
ECONOMIC FAILURE
Social security and economic prosperity were bedrock tenets of ANC policy when it won power under anti-apartheid hero Mandela in 1994.
But today more than 60% of South Africans live in poverty, according to the World Bank, while a decade of economic stagnation has pushed unemployment above 32%, nearly 10 points higher than 30 years ago. Over a third of the population receives cash grants and other social support.
READ: Ramaphosa pledges jobs, economic reform as ANC launches manifesto
During the pandemic, the government created a new benefit for the working-age unemployed accessed by more than 6 million people.
Though meant to be temporary, it was extended earlier this year, against the advice of Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana.
"That hasn't worked as well as it should. And I think that objective, we need to get back to it," he said.
Dalene Raiters lost her job at a local primary school 16 years ago. Her adult son is also jobless. Like many South Africans, their entire family of four lives off the grants of those who qualify.
For Raiters that means the R1 080 per month she receives for two minor dependents - her teenage boy and grandson supplemented with handouts from a local mosque, feeding schemes or odd jobs she does for neighbours.
It's never enough.
"Sometimes it breaks my heart," she said, in tears.
"DOOMSDAY COALITION"
While the ANC denies it will need a coalition, most polls predict an end to its single-party governance after 29 May.
The business-friendly, centre-right DA - the largest opposition party - would seem an awkward fit.
While it is promising to increase the value of select grants and convert the pandemic-era payment into a job-seekers grant, it is primarily focused on job creation.
READ: Editorial | Hand-outs are not a long-term solution
It wants to relax labour laws and do away with affirmative action aimed at redressing apartheid-era discrimination.
Though the DA squarely blames the ANC for the country's current troubles, it has not ruled out partnering with its ideological opponent to prevent what leader John Steenhuisen dubs a "doomsday coalition" of the ANC and the EFF.
"I've seen the mass emigration from places like Zimbabwe and Venezuela. I've seen the starvation," Steenhuisen said. "I don't want that for South Africa."
And its election manifesto calls for a doubling of existing social benefits across the board, the establishment of a new grant for unemployed university graduates and more free public services for the poor.
Michael Sachs, an economist at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies, said the system currently has the resources to support its intended beneficiaries: children and pensioners.
What it can't do is cope with the effects of skyrocketing unemployment and formal sector stagnation.
Sachs said:
For Raiters, the answer isn't more welfare benefits: only work will give the next generation a chance.
"I know I'm not going to live a long time," she said. "But for the future, I hope my grandson can get a better job."
