South Africans went to the ballot box this past week to elect local councillors in what was described as a hotly contested election, presenting the ruling African National Congress with its stiffest challenge since the end of apartheid.

Indeed, early trends in the tallying of the votes indicated that the ruling party was struggling in places like Gauteng as a Democratic Alliance (DA) tide seemed to threaten to sweep away the venerable incumbents.

Of course, the ANC was always going to win the election overall. Recently, I wrote on this page that for a crushing majority of South Africans, the ANC is not your regular political party. It is much more than that. The ANC represents the aspirations of black people, their hope and yearning, the expression of their very being, their soul.

It is this mythical entity that has been in existence for more than a hundred years, and has accompanied and protected, cradled and suckled, nurtured and comforted the majority of the people of that country through a hundred hells. It is that idea that still occupies so much space in the minds and hearts of those masses that makes support for “i-Congress” sometimes automatic and unthinking.

For 22 years, the leadership of the ANC has drawn on the extremely rich bank account built up over the years through the sacrifices made by the political and spiritual giants of the past, who, upon inspection, have nothing to do with the thuggish Lilliputians of the present day. The midgets we behold today are schooled in withdrawing and squandering, with a pathological aversion for depositing.

That is why last week’s election has been an occasion for the people to give a good hiding to the ANC, punishing it for all the corruption associated with its leader, Jacob Zuma. It is ironical that even a municipality named Nelson Mandela Bay should go to the opposition DA with its well-known Afrikaner leanings.

The day is not far off when the ANC’s bank account will be completely overdrawn and the people of that country will find an alternative political machine to lead them, an organisation that, hopefully, will be headed by people of integrity, probity and dignity, rather than the Artful Dodgers in place today.

Unfortunately, this is a wish and a hope that holds for basically the entirety of the countries on our continent, a continent so deprived of honourable individuals to serve in leadership positions that one could be excused for thinking it is something we planned.

Some of the old political organisations that led our countries to Independence may have been led by people motivated by the desire to serve, but where have they all gone? Why is it that a country that has known a Luthuli can tolerate a Zuma?

The leadership deficit we are in the process of suffering is not unrelated to the high levels of poverty that our countries still groan under. Nor can that poverty be decoupled from the violence, instability and fratricidal wars ravaging the continent. And in in a devilish dialectic, the mayhem that we keep generating comes back to deepen our poverty and misery even further, and to keep us forever trapped in vicious circles we have drawn around ourselves with our own hands.

The liberation train that we flagged off half a century ago, just like the one set in motion in South Africa a century ago, did not conduct us to our desired destination. In fact, in most cases, we have been derailed, diverted and left in the wilderness. All too often, the old enemies we thought we had vanquished have come back to enslave us with our own rulers as the foremen to beat us into line. Look around Africa and you will see what I am seeing.

It is unpalatable, and it may cause some of us to be depressed, but the truth is that Africa needs a second liberation, because the first liberation was aborted. It is the lesson we cannot help but learn when as we contemplate what has been happening in South Africa. Which is what has been happening in all the African countries, with one or two exceptions, period.

Jenerali Ulimwengu is chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper and an advocate of the High Court in Dar es Salaam. E-mail: [email protected]