Having read the ANC's birthday celebrations statement delivered by President Cyril Ramaphosa this past weekend, I am unable to decide which of two equally worrying responses to foreground. First, the statement is a compelling argument for why the ANC shouldn't be voted back into government. Second, the media as well as the public's responses to the ANC's January 8 statement - and to its adopted party resolutions after the elective conference - are so quiet and mostly uncritical that it bodes poorly for entrenching democratic accountability.

Let's start off with the dramatic irony that the ANC president, unintentionally no doubt, made a case for not voting ANC. This statement, it must be borne in mind too, is approved by and indeed constructed jointly with the highest decision-making structure of the ANC, it's national executive committee. So the whole bunch of them, collectively, have now told us why they shouldn't be in charge of the state...