If one story epitomises the failure of the Jacob Zuma administration, it has to be that of Mxolisi Nxasana, the outgoing national director of public prosecutions. The NPA head, who almost faced a presidential inquiry into his fitness to hold office, is poised to exit the civil service with a golden handshake.This is a story about a man who stood up to Umshiniwami and won, but his victory will cost our democracy dearly.Independent-minded Nxasana wouldn't tolerate the nonsense of some of his woefully inadequate and politically malleable subordinates.So the president moved on Nxasana, establishing an inquiry that took months to establish and then was cancelled before it started.Advocate Nazeer Cassim, appointed to head it, was miffed. He said Zuma cancelled the inquiry and should explain why.He also questioned the president's failure to do something as simple as a background check on Nxasana."Why didn't the president do his homework" before appointing Nxasana? Cassim asked.Nxasana is surely smiling all the way to the bank. What a pity he didn't stand for truth at all costs.If Cassim had ruled in his favour he would have been most threatening to our morally dubious president.Nxasana could have brought back the corruption charges against Number One, the same ones that consigned his terminally ill mate, fraudster Schabir Shaik, to purgatory on the golf course.One day this week in one edition of a daily newspaper I read about the Nxasana debacle; about how the ANC Women's League national conference had been postponed for the umpteenth time; and about a UN special rapporteur who cancelled her trip to South Africa because the government wouldn't confirm when it could meet her.In eThekwini we're at sea because of the disastrous ANC regional elective conference that has been thrice cancelled because each event ended in chaos. The most recent event saw Premier Senzo Mchunu drowned out by singing and dancing saboteurs of democracy.Stephen Grootes, writing for the Daily Maverick, summed the situation up perfectly."What do you get when you impose further chaos upon existing disorder? The answer surely lies in the NPA. We have become so used to factions,in-fighting and general nonsense, that it's both strangely familiar and almost impossible to discern the truth."The NPA drama would have long-lasting ramifications, he said, none of them good."But that's what happens when you impose chaos. And when you impose chaos upon us time and time and time again, in the NPA, the Hawks, Eskom, SARS, the SABC, SAA, and almost everywhere else you look."At the last aborted ANC conference in eThekwini, community safety MEC Willies Mchunu implored delegates: "Comrades, you are killing the organisation. What you are doing is totally wrong. Can you please behave yourselves?"The comrades won't. They take their cue from the top...