16 December 2005 Editor's Note e-mail: fmeditor@fm.co.za Barney Mthombothi

For the ANC, the festive season will come as a huge relief. Public attention will move on to more mundane things, away from the tawdry ANC linen that has been on display. To quote a famous Englishwoman, it's been an annus horribilis for the ANC; a year like no other. And who said power is a bed of roses? If there's one lesson that the ANC should learn from this messy affair it is to tell the truth. The truth should at all times be your guiding principle. It is what good parents teach their children. Lies get you into even more trouble. By consorting and conniving with dodgy characters, Jacob Zuma may have brought the troubles on himself, but it's the ANC's lies and poor handling of the issue which escalated it into a crisis. It should have nipped it in the bud, and moved on, even if it meant throwing Zuma to the wolves. The organisation - and certainly the country - is surely bigger than the selfish interests of one man. Thabo Mbeki made an elegant speech dismissing his deputy from government. And he deserves all the plaudits he got for it. But that's about the only thing he got right. From then on it was downhill, and damn lies. It was Zuma's good fortune that he was sacked only days before the ANC's national general council. When Mbeki and the ANC entered the hall, they walked straight into an ambush and inflamed passions. Zuma, the rank-and-file were told, had agreed to stand down from his party position. It was a blatant lie, and the activists knew it. They were livid. The leadership panicked. The rest is history. Even Mbeki's closing address was a charade. He called for support for Zuma but his body language told a different story. The victor calling for support for the vanquished! His supporters were not fooled. They knew whose hand had plunged in the dagger. But it was the ANC statement released after its NEC meeting last month that stretched all credulity. In a nutshell, it denied the existence of a split in the ANC, dispatching senior officers to deny the obvious. The ANC, it seems, has yet to come home. It's still in exile where smoke and mirrors are part of the tapestry. It has yet to come to terms with power, let alone democracy. It has yet to understand that democracy by definition implies an open society. There's no place to hide. You can't tell lies without inviting public scorn or ridicule. The Zuma imbroglio is tawdry and we're all sick of it. It's time this man was removed from our presence. Cut him loose and let's move on. As long as his rotting corpse is allowed to hang around, the stench will remain. But, above all, tell the truth. That's the very least that the country expects of its leaders.