Adwoa Ankoma grew up knowing that when she was old enough to cast her first ballot, it would be for the party that everyone she knew voted for. She would vote ANC.

But the 21-year-old student is now looking for a new political home for the first time in a life of unconditional loyalty to the powerful African National Congress (ANC), which ended apartheid's white minority rule in 1994.

The trigger was the sudden axing of former president Thabo Mbeki in a bitter internal struggle that has rocked the country with a series of cabinet resignations and market turmoil.

"It felt like someone had betrayed us," said Ankoma. "They took for granted how it would affect the country."

The ANC's swift removal of Mbeki has led to heated debate among disillusioned black South Africans faced with an opposition which lacks the magnetism of the party that made Nelson Mandela president.

"In South Africa, there isn't really an opposition. If you don't vote ANC, you don't really know who else to vote for," admitted Ankoma.

The possibility of a breakaway party?

Reports of a breakaway party to contest next year's elections intensified on Friday, after an angry public exchange of letters between two top party members as the political fall-out continued.

The move could be the most serious split ever within the ANC, which has weathered growing internal tensions among its diverse support base, which includes billionaires and beggars.

"The ANC may regret the decision (to oust Mbeki) in that it could precipitate a split," said analyst Frans Cronje of the South African Institute of Race Relations.

A moderate breakaway party could appeal to parts of a small black middle-class — a minority of the millions of people still living in poverty — who benefit from a stable status quo, he said.

The unease from young voters was a significant shift from the ANC's strong emotional pull on black voters, Cronje added.

"That it has seen this turn shows that the party has made a strategic error in alienating its future voters."

Moeletsi Mbeki, political analyst and brother of the former president, recently told a newspaper that he believed the turmoil would play out in elections next year.

"It will play out at the polls because a huge number of the black middle-class are very unhappy about what's going on in the ANC. I think we could see reduced participation by the electorate."

An obligation to vote for the ANC

On the social networking site Facebook this week, young South Africans debated their feelings of obligation to vote ANC because of its liberation struggle history versus their confusion at recent events.

"It is about time all of us use our heads to vote and not be blackmailed by the past... Apartheid happened — it is time we moved on," wrote one poster.

Talks of a breakaway party cropped up last December after the ANC ended Mbeki's bid at a third term as party chief in favour of presidential frontrunner Jacob Zuma, whom Mbeki fired as his deputy three years ago.

The move effectively created two centres of power, leading Mbeki to be labelled as a lame-duck president in the shadow of Zuma's government in waiting.

But the chances of a new party actually taking off are limited, because it would need massive funding and charismatic leadership to challenge the ANC's "phenomenal electioneering machine", Cronje said.

He added: "But if it were to emerge, the environment for it to do well in is the best that it has been in 20 years. The window of opportunity is now."