Once upon a time there was a man called Jacob. He was from the Zuma clan near the Nkandla forest. He ran a political party so dominant in his country that he used to boast it would rule until Christ’s second coming. Or at least that is what journalists and the public heard. Many years later, after his party unceremoniously removed him from office, a commission of inquiry exposed the extent of sheer thievery on his watch and the highest court in the land sentenced him to 15 months in prison for contempt of court, Jacob began his second coming. The nation watched in shock and awe as, with his spear, he took town after town in his province, reducing his old party to the opposition benches while also wreaking havoc on other parties’ support bases. But it was the damage his spear did to his old party at national level — cutting its support sharply to a little more than 40% — that made Hogarth realise that the journalists and the public had all misheard the man about the second coming. What they should have heard him say was that “the ANC will rule until Jacob comes”...