Who flung all the dung?

Spare a thought for the ANC volunteer who will be knocking from one door to the next in the townships and informal settlements this coming summer, canvassing for votes.

Her party-issued election manual would have prepared her well to answer voter questions about the National Development Plan, the ANC's track record in the government over the past 20 years, and why President Jacob Zuma's government has failed to deliver the jobs he promised when he took office in 2009.

But what would she say about isibaya (kraal)?

One is not talking here of the massively popular Mzansi Magic Zulu telenovela about the violent rivalry between the Zungu and Ndlovu taxi dynasties.

I am referring to the R1-million cattle kraal which has apparently been built from public coffers at Zuma's family home in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal.

How does the volunteer, who is paid next to nothing for her campaign work, explain to working class folk in Cape Town's Makhaza informal settlement why they live in squalor while Zuma's cattle live in apparent luxury?

Even if she were campaigning in the suburbs, the kraal would be a difficult subject to tackle, because for most of those now considered part of the "middle class" a R1-million bond is still only a dream.

It has been close to two weeks since the Mail & Guardian revealed this shocking figure but, as with the rest of the infuriating Nkandlagate, officials are treating the safety of the presidential livestock as a top state secret.

As it formulates its 2014 election manifesto and puts final touches to its campaign strategy, the ANC can no longer avoid having a difficult but necessary conversation about its president - the man widely expected to be the face of its campaign.

That Zuma is a polarising figure is something we have known all along. But that did not stop him from winning the presidency with a comfortable majority in 2009.

However, next year's general election promises to be different from the 2009 poll in many ways.

A significant number of voters - the so-called born-frees - will be casting their votes for the first time, and there are no guarantees that they will be following the voting patterns of the past four elections.

Another development is the creation of two new political formations - Julius Malema's Economic Freedom Fighters and Mamphela Ramphele's Agang SA - which will be fishing from the same pond as the ANC next year.

In 2009, COPE broke away from the ANC just months before the polls and garnered more than a million votes. It is anybody's guess how many votes EFF and Agang will wrest from the ruling party.

If, as is being alleged by some in the government and the ANC, Zuma is the victim in Nkandlagate, along with all of us, of unscrupulous civil servants and construction companies, which "colluded" to inflate the costs of the security upgrade programme, why aren't the culprits publicly named, shamed and charged?

The only way of removing suspicion of wrongdoing on the part of the president and his ministers is for the government's report on the Nkandlagate investigation to be made public.

Having cruised to a second term as ANC president, Zuma remains hugely popular in the party.

But does this popularity extend to the rest of the electorate? Will his controversies not be an albatross around the ruling party's neck as it fights what Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe predicts will be "a tough election"?

While the ruling party is in no danger of losing its National Assembly majority next year, it risks returning to parliament a much weaker organisation unless it confronts these issues head on.

Pundits are already predicting that the ANC's parliamentary seat count will shrink to less than 60% of the house, giving a psychological boost to the hitherto insignificant opposition.

There seem to be only two ways the ANC can prevent this decline.

It can persuade the 71-year-old party boss to fulfil a promise he allegedly made before the 2009 elections to stay in office for only one term. Some in his inner circle claimed he intended to announce he would not return to the Union Buildings next year, but was stopped by ANC alliance leaders whose fortunes are directly linked to him being president.

A different presidential candidate, one not tainted by scandal and controversy, seems the sensible way of ensuring disillusioned party supporters continue to vote ANC next year.

But if the party fears that replacing Zuma could have a negative impact on its structures as well as the electoral constituencies where he remains popular, it urgently needs to figure out how to clean up his image and reputation ahead of the polls.

Surely no party wants potential voters to wonder every time they see its presidential candidate on election posters if he isn't a "Number 1 tsotsi" who pick-pockets the national treasury at will.

To remove any suspicions about Zuma, and if the party is confident that he is not the one who pressured officials to build him a R1-million kraal and spend another R205-million on his private residence, the president and the ANC should insist the report be made public as a matter of urgency.