How much more damage must we allow ANC to get away with?

If we were to ask ordinary, law-abiding South Africans to draw up a bucket list, what main items would feature?

Probably nothing like the way-out ones in the movie starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. The majority, the rural poor subsisting in the sticks, would undoubtedly wish for a job, a decent roof over their heads and food on the table.

Overnight their health would improve and they would have the chance to become part and parcel of a contented community at large; and needn’t rely on handouts by lying politicos.

And given the state of the nation, even the wishes of the rich and middle class would overlap. As they already enjoy what the poor lack materially, theirs would also cover raw politics and wish for a new, clean government.

Strange as it might appear, on the ground we’re all getting on famously whether with home carers, petrol jockeys, street cleaners, factory and office workers mingling, teasing, laughing and enjoying each other’s company.

The same applies to sport. Spectators know no colour, except those worn by their teams. So who reshoots this idyllic scene? Who fiddles with a perfect script?

Enter the unscrupulous politicians, always waiting in the wings. Electioneering; lying; stealing (even from the poor); promising the impossible, with unsustainable policies. The country is enveloped in political pollution.

Ordinary people are being subjected to poisonous fumes fanning the flames of discontent and discord among families, friends and communities. To what end? Allowing the same shameless, untouchable and unrepentant rabble to continue keeping a nation in utter despair?

The question is: How do we turn our collective main desire into a happening? Is there a way of replacing ANC has-beens with new faces?

How much more damage must we allow the ANC to get away with? How many more Zuma prayer meetings before the pathetic man vanishes from our television screens?

An efficacious start would be to show up in hordes at the polling stations, grasping the only life line left. If it were a movie, Morgan and Jack would love playing “feel-good” characters.

When last have South Africans enjoyed this deserved role?