AKIPRESS.COM - South Africa's African National Congress (ANC), which took power at the end of white-minority rule in 1994, is facing its toughest challenge - and not just from opposition parties in Wednesday's local elections.

The hotly contested campaign has been marred by internal squabbles within the governing party, which have turned violent, BBC reports.

The township of Atteridgeville, west of the capital, Pretoria, is one of several areas to have experienced some of this violence.

The working class community was outraged when the ANC foisted Thoko Dididza as the party's candidate for mayor of Tshwane, the metropolitan area which includes Pretoria.

People took to the streets to express their displeasure; buses were burnt and road barricaded as they demanded that the current ANC mayor, Kgosientsho "Sputla" Ramokgopa be on the ballot again.

The violence spread across many other areas in Tshwane - and five people lost their lives.

Ms Dididza was chosen by ANC head office after the local party could not agree between "Sputla" and his challenger during the nomination process.

Such local feuding has been most prevalent in KwaZulu-Natal province, where 12 ANC councillors have been killed in the last two months. Last week, another was shot dead in the Eastern Cape province.