Riding a polished Harley- Davidson motorcycle through downtown Cape Town, fiery South African politician Patricia de Lille hits the campaign trail.
De Lille, a mixed-race former trade union activist with a sharp tongue and a sharper sense of humour, appears to personify many of the changes that South Africa has seen in the 10 years since the end of apartheid.
Her appeal bridges all race and class groups, and is particularly strong among women. But her future may depend on the mixed-race "Coloured" vote which many analysts say could determine the fortunes of the Western Cape province in the April 14 general elections.
"I think the so-called major parties are underestimating the anger of the people of the Western Cape," De Lille told Reuters during a campaign stop, predicting a big swing to her new party.
Approachable and open, De Lille has become a media favourite, but her support is yet to be tested.
Long one of South Africa's most visible members of parliament, 52-year-old De Lille broke away from the radical left-wing Pan Africanist Congress in March last year to form the Independent Democrats (ID).
While not expected to dent the ruling African National Congress's (ANC) overwhelming national majority, the ID could become a key player in the Western Cape - the South Africa's second richest region centred around Cape Town.
South Africa's Coloureds, descendents of black, European and Asian groups which mixed over the centuries, have long felt themselves a caste apart.
Under the race laws of the white apartheid government, Coloureds - who make up about four million of South Africa's 45 million people - were accorded more rights than the black majority but denied full citizenship and kept in low-paying jobs that doomed generations to poverty.
Now, under President Thabo Mbeki's ANC, many Coloured voters say they are being marginalised again.
"They have not really looked after us...after 10 years nothing much has happened for the Coloured people," said Joline Koopman, of Atlantis, a poor largely coloured town 40 km (25 miles) north of Cape Town.
The 41-year-old, who get up at 4.30 am to begin the bus journey to her job in the city, has watched gangs and drugs overrun her small town as factories close and businesses leave.
Like many in her community, which makes up 55 percent of the population in the Western Cape, Koopman says she will not vote in the election.
"I'm not really into politics, I am just so very disappointed with these politicians. As soon as they have got our vote they will forget about us," Koopman said.
Pollsters Markinor say only 65 percent of the eligible Coloured voters have registered to vote, compared to 86 percent of black voters.
Judith February, a political analyst with the independent pressure group the Institute for Democracy in South Africa, says Coloured disillusionment with today's politicians may benefit De Lille's ID, but could spell trouble for the Coloured community in the long run.
"This is bad for democracy. As poverty grows, there is a danger that the working-class Coloured people might disengage from politics," she said.
Coloured voters have traditionally found a home with the New National Party (NNP) - the successor to the party that enacted apartheid - finding solidarity in its links to the Afrikaans language, the mother tongue for many in the Coloured community.
But the NNP has now linked up with its old foe, the ANC, in an coalition that controls the Western Cape.
De Lille's strong Coloured identity could challenge this alliance, allowing her party to play a swing role in any future provincial government, although critics say that her domination of the fledgling party and its poor organisation could hamper her progress.
Analysts say the Coloured voters' fear for their place in the new South Africa stems from their competition with blacks for jobs, now exacerbated by perceptions that the ANC government is dedicated to promoting black interests.
"They were mainly Afrikaans-speaking who were put in direct competition on manual labour with the black population...it was a case of better the devil you know than the devil you don't know," said Professor Hennie Kotze, of the University of Stellenbosch. Mbeki, backed by his popular Coloured Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, has played heavily on the ANC's role in ending white rule and urged Coloured voters to help the government further that transformation.
But a decade after apartheid, the Cape Flats - a string of poor black and Coloured settlements - remain a far cry from the city's opulent white suburbs and critics say government "empowerment" efforts target the black elite and are unlikely to trickle down to the Cape's Coloured poor.
Many in the Coloured community are still searching for a new political home and, despite De Lille's aggressive campaigning, it is far from certain she will win their backing.
Twenty-three year old catering assistant Leoni Draai says she will vote on April 14, but she does not know for whom.
"I don't feel like voting because I don't want to support any of these people, everything they tell us is just promises," she said.
Lennit Max, the mixed-race former Western Cape police commissioner and the ID's premier-candidate, is convinced, however, that the ID's voice will carry far in his community when it comes time to choose.
"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog," he told a small but enthusiastic crowd.
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