Apart from there needing to be a viable direction and plan to set the country on the road to reconstructing our democratic life, who can be relied on to do this, to ensure that whatever may be agreed on between distinct interested parties will be implemented? In my view, elections are not the route to go for this. The ANC may be in a terminal crisis. The death of a party can happen very quickly. If the ANC were to lose control of the levers of state, and other vehicles for patronage, it may not hold together and it no longer has a shared political consciousness to evoke enduring loyalty. Its leaders and followers could desert and move in more than one direction.

Professor Raymond Suttner unpacks Part Two of his column, 'Demoralisation, passivity and hope'.

Click here to read the column.