This week I’m aboard a time machine that has taken me to the year 2121, a century from now. Time is moving ever so slowly. To avoid descending into boredom, I decide to do some light reading.

After rummaging through a couple of drawers, I come across an old history book, written decades ago. Right in the first chapter, it reads: “Once upon a time, in the land of Mzansi, there lived a seer. His name was Msholozi. Besides his divine calling, he was the leader of a political party called the African National Congress (ANC) and his country’s head of State for about nine years. His tenure as Citizen Number One should have been ten years, but his comrades felt he had become a liability and decided to do an et tu, Brute on him.

“Now, the ANC was no ordinary political party. It was the party that liberated the majority of Mzansi’s citizens from oppression by a tiny percentage of the population under the guise of separate development of the land’s various ethnicities. As they say, good always triumphs over evil – uhuru for everyone eventually arrived and at some point the State leadership mantle was passed on to Msholozi. It was during this time that he went into a trance and started prophesying, saying: ‘The spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has commanded me to declare to you, O citizens of this great land of ours, that the ANC shall rule until the Son of Man appears in the sky and sounds the trumpet, signalling his second coming.’”

To the uninitiated, Msholozi is the clan endearment of former President Jacob Zuma. Besides consorting with Indian-born sleazeball businesspeople who washed up on Mzansi’s shores in the early years of democracy and went on to milk State coffers of billions of rands, he is infamous for telling ANC supporters in 2008 that the party would be ensconced in power until Jesus comes back.

Events of the past month must have been a huge rude awakening for Zuma. The ANC is no longer in charge of some of the country’s major cities – Tshwane, which happens to be the seat of government; Johannesburg, the commercial capital; and Ekurhuleni. Cape Town, where Parliament is based, has long since been in opposition hands.

The Second Coming has already happened in these places, and it’s anybody’s guess if a similar fate is not in store as far as national government is concerned. But it’s a real possibility. One only needs to look at the history of other liberation movements in our region. In Zambia, the party of liberation, the United National Independence Party (UNIP), was booted out after 27 years, when voters felt it was no longer fit for purpose. At that stage, UNIP and its leader, the late Kenneth Kaunda, were clearly out of their depth. I’m old enough to remember the food shortages and other ills that led to riots in Zambia’s urban centres.

In Malawi, founding President Kamuzu Banda’s party was dislodged in 1994, after 30 years in power, while in Zimbabwe Zanu-PF, by many accounts, lost elections in 2008 (after 28 years at the helm) but retained power through skulduggery. In Kenya, Kanu is now history. I’m not sure why Frelimo in Mozambique and MPLA in Angola are still in power, 40-plus years later. But one can understand the longevity of Swapo in Namibia and the Botswana Democratic Party next door – they seem to be quite good at governing.

To me, 30 years seems to be about the time by which liberation parties begin to lose steam, unless they are perceived to be doing a good job. When the 2024 elections roll around, the ANC would have reigned for 30 years. That could be a watershed moment.