The ghost at the feast warns Zuma that no one is safe

Mbeki's presence in Mangaung also brings home how far South Africa's leadership has fallen since even his troubled reign

IN SEPTEMBER 2007, when Mercedes-Benz launched its latest C-Class model, I waited along with every other VIP from East London and politician from Bhisho.

We were waiting for the guest of honour, then-president Thabo Mbeki.

When he arrived, we all stood up as we were expected to do, being in the presence of the president of the republic of South Africa.

But I looked at him with a cold heart. Two months earlier, Mbeki had launched a stinging attack on the Daily Dispatch, where I was the editor at the time, after we had published a series on problems at Frere Hospital's maternity unit.

Mbeki, in an ANC newsletter, had essentially called us liars and said we had exaggerated the truth. Another newsletter sought to prove I had always been an opponent of the democratic revolution.

As Mbeki moved to the stage at the Mercedes plant on that September day, I could hardly bring myself to look at him. It was one thing to be the observer of his attacks on others, but it was altogether too difficult to shrug off the direct lash of his tongue.

Last Sunday, when President Jacob Zuma thanked Mbeki as a former president of the ANC and I heard the roar from the crowd in Mangaung, I wondered what would have happened if Mbeki had triumphed at Polokwane in 2008 or if he had been allowed to finish his term in office.

That moment in 2008 has remained a distinct memory. Sitting in my East London home, I remember, I begged my two toddler daughters to be quiet because Mama wanted to hear the president speak. We all knew what was about to come.

And there it was. Mbeki was gone. As he spoke, one of my daughters touched my face and I realised I was crying. In that moment, in all of my despair and anger at an arrogant, aloof president, there was the stunning realisation of what lay ahead for us, what would replace him.

Mbeki was no faultless leader. Indeed, his flaws were multiple - the Aids denialism, a penchant for sweeping personal attacks, a fragile, defensive ego, a love for super-big words and quoting Pliny the Elder.

In our celebration of the ousting of the "exile", few of us perhaps truly realised what an awful compromise Zuma would turn out to be. Now, two years into a Zuma presidency, we have an economy that barely creates jobs and a youth league that holds him in contempt.

Zuma's rambling speech in Mangaung - summed up in the Mail & Guardian as having consisted of 5708 words - was an ill-prepared monologue on the history of the ANC over the past 100 years.

His predecessor Nelson Mandela would have drawn us closer with the language of reconciliation, with references to what binds us together as a nation rather than what separates us. Madiba would have offered 10 decades of hope, optimism and idealism because that is what the character of Nelson Mandela would have demanded.

Mbeki would have given us beautiful, ringing imagery, something akin to his "I am an African" speech, that would have excavated the rich history of our country and its people.

But there was Zuma, lumbering and heavy, plodding through 40-odd pages of dense history without offering a vision of our future.

There is a tumultuous year ahead of us with a distressed global economy that might not recover its equilibrium any time soon - but, most importantly, it is a year that might end with the defeat of the man from Nkandla.

I hope it does. Our nation deserves more than lethargy, more than uninspired plodding and vacillation. Our young country, in all its promise and fragile nationhood, needs a leader who will, if nothing else, lead decisively and be bold enough to rectify mistakes.

South Africa needs - along with astute managers like Pravin Gordhan - economic direction. We need, at this moment, a president who is confident enough to call together our brightest and best economic minds tocreate a path through the minefield of eurozone implosion.

We need a leader who will hear the growls of hunger that rise from the bellies of the youngest among us, who will hear the weeping of the father who has lost his job, the desperate moan of despair of a pupil who has failed matric.

We need a president who will speak frankly and courageously about the issues that threaten our cohesion - corruption, delivery and crime. But more than pretty promises, we need action.

Mbeki's appearance at Mangaung was a timely reminder of many things - that things can change very quickly, that settling for a compromise candidate can lead to disaster.

But, perhaps most humbling, the greatest lesson Mbeki offers us is that no one is indispensable - not even the president of a 100-year-old organisation with a history of fortitude and courage.