First step for ANC road to recovery

Arrogance has always been a hallmark of ANC leaders … who can forget Jacob Zuma’s immortal assessment that the party would rule “until Jesus returns”?

And when they get in front of global media, they can get combative too – as the party’s secretary-general Fikile Mbalula proved on the BBC Hard Talk programme this week, when he launched an assault on everything British, wondering why the country had not arrested anyone after invading Iraq, with the US in 2003.

He may have had a point about the nonexistent “weapons of mass destruction” which was the pretext for the invasion … but he came across as touchy and defensive on the issue of Vladimir Putin.

ALSO READ: Mbeki’s meeting with ANC leaders ‘an opportunity to get guidance’

Colonialist

Of more interest to South Africans than his putting the “colonialist” in his place would have been Mbalula’s frank acknowledgement that if the ANC doesn’t sort out load shedding, then it risks failing to get a majority in next year’s general election.

Even more telling was his concession that if the power crisis and sundry other governmental disasters are not sorted out, the country is in danger of becoming a failed state.

Is it too much to hope that the ANC might be like the recovering alcoholic in taking the first step to recovery by admitting they messed up?

READ MORE: New ANC leaders may be crooks too