The ANC has immersed itself in an unenviable dilemma of its own making. By pretending for so long a unity that any impartial spectator could see was a transparent sham, it now sits with a legacy it can’t shake. This is the doing of the Top Six and the NEC. Had they been guided by the party’s own history and collective conscience, they wouldn’t be in this quandary. They would’ve opted for genuine introspection and resolve to root out the subversive rot instead of playing unconvincing word games and hollow gestures aimed at deceiving the public.

While the aforesaid is 20/20 hindsight, it cannot be denied the ANC we have today has idly squandered much of the people’s trust, and it is not unreasonable to think that they, as leaders, should have seen this coming and conducted themselves accordingly to prevent it. The great tragedy here is not the collective fall from grace; it’s that the people of this country are being dragged down alongside with no effective recourse to arrest the fall.