The tense and at times vulgar election campaign have now been taken to the small screen, with the ANC forking out R10-million for TV ads that feature Nelson Mandela.
On Friday, the ruling party will become the first to make full use of the rules approved by Icasa, the regulator, for political parties to run free TV commercials.
The opposition Democratic Alliance said on Thurday its adverts would be flighted on Monday.
The ANC and the DA have refused to divulge the cost of making and producing the adverts.
However, The Star has learnt from reliable sources that the ruling party paid R10-million to agency Ogilvy Worldwide to produce the commercials.
But the ANC's Jessie Duarte said: "We never talk about the budget and how much it cost - that is not important. What is more important is to get across to a section of people that belong to the ANC."
The adverts, unveiled to the media in Joburg on Thurday, invoke the iconic stature of Mandela.
In one advert, Mandela is shown - in library footage - taking his first steps to freedom on that afternoon in February 1990, waving and raising his clenched fists.
The use of Mandela's image comes as a storm rages between the ANC and the Nelson Mandela Foundation, with the party being accused of compromising the former president's security and health when he was paraded at a recent Eastern Cape election rally.
The foundation's chief executive, Achmat Dangor, on Thurday had no objections "in principle" to the ANC ad, though they had not seen it.
He said they were still to meet the ANC over the Eastern Cape episode.
All ANC adverts end with leader Jacob Zuma emphasising the party election's tagline appealing to people to "vote ANC".
The thrust of the commercials is to appeal to the young electorate.
They show a man in his early 20s from Sebokeng, south of Joburg, an urban woman from the Cape Flats in her late 20s, and a professional woman in her 30s talking about how the ANC government had made it possible for them to live a better life.
Icasa regulations stipulate that all broadcasting licence holders, including radio stations, must make four two-minute slots available every day for what is known as party election broadcasts.