Despite being a rich country with plenty of natural resources, South Africa struggles to feed its sixty million people. Its unemployment rate is the highest in the world, its children are disproportionately affected by malnutrition and its power grid has frequent outages. Those are just some of the challenges, but a growing number of ordinary citizens feel helpless. They want their government to take stronger action against corruption and poverty, including a slew of unmet promises like universal housing and free higher education.

That is why a new movement has emerged to push for greater accountability. The group calls itself Cal20 South Africa, short for Citizens’ Action to Demand Transformation. It’s an alliance of civic groups and labor unions, as well as a coalition of left-wing political parties. In the past few months, it has gathered almost three million signatures on an online petition demanding reform. The coalition says that its goal is to pressure the government into creating a national minimum wage and introducing free tuition at universities for all students from low-income families. It also advocates more social spending, improved public services, and the creation of jobs.

The movement has received support from politicians of all stripes, including some from the ruling African National Congress (ANC), but has met with opposition from powerful business interests and the international community. It has organized rallies and meetings in cities across the country, but most of the momentum comes from social media campaigns that highlight specific issues. One focuses on the fact that many local government officials are unaccountable, with some even serving on boards of private companies or on foundations funded by wealthy donors.

But the most important factor in the campaign is a deep sense of frustration among ordinary South Africans about their government’s failure to tackle corruption and poverty. In a recent survey, more than eighty percent of South Africans said they were “almost constantly frustrated or angry” with the government.

Another focus is Israel’s war on Gaza, which began in October and has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, displaced over 1.9 million others, and destroyed or damaged nearly 70 percent of the area’s homes. The ANC sees parallels between Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and its own apartheid system, which restricted blacks to “homelands” before ending in 1994.

On 11 January, a hush descended over the ornate courtroom at The Hague’s Peace Palace as the judges of the International Court of Justice began hearing South Africa’s case against Israel for its attacks on the Palestinian enclave. If history is any guide, the ICJ will likely issue a provisional ruling within weeks, despite the fact that Israeli airstrikes are still underway in Gaza.