Johannesburg — LET me try for the umpteenth time to get this right. SABC CEO Dali Mpofu suspends head of news Snuki Zikalala; the SABC board suspends Mpofu for suspending Zikalala; and the African National Congress (ANC) in Parliament wants to suspend the SABC board.

Does this then make Mpofu a friend of the ANC in Parliament? This seems improbable, given that Mpofu was until recently a well-known Mbeki-ite and the ANC in Parliament is now dancing to Jacob Zuma's tune. But then again, in politics there are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies, only permanent interests. In politics, as in life in general, an enemy of my enemy becomes my friend.

Some time ago I urged Mpofu to quit the SABC before he was completely compromised. Intoxicated with bureaucratic power, Mpofu had no reason to heed my call. He had set up a commission headed by reputable individuals, Zwelakhe Sisulu and Gilbert Marcus, but when they found Zikalala guilty of blacklisting several critics of the government, Mpofu rallied to Zikalala's defence. By that one act, he put his professional integrity in jeopardy. And now he has had to fire the very same Zikalala on whom he squandered his reputation.

There are many lessons to be learnt from this sorry saga, and one is that power never lasts. It is indeed amazing what a change in political regime can precipitate across a country's institutional matrix. As a friend put it: "Kuphethe bhuli limbi ngoku" (there are new political bosses now). I am sometimes ambivalent about some of the actions of these new bosses, especially their haste to disband the Scorpions. They too sometimes speak and act like they're intoxicated with power, or what presidential historian Richard Neustadt called the "newness of power".

HOWEVER, all of these reservations notwithstanding, the new ANC broom seems to be sweeping clean in other respects. It is certainly filling the vacuum of leadership on Zimbabwe. Indeed, Zuma may achieve what has eluded Thabo Mbeki in all of the past 10 years of his shameful policy of quiet diplomacy. Mbeki has become much more than our Neville Chamberlain on Zimbabwe. If all of the allegations about him ordering a shipment of arms to go through to that country are true, then quiet diplomacy would have been nothing but cover for covert warmongering.

We desperately need the new ANC leadership to restore our integrity in the eyes of the people of Zimbabwe. It is indeed heartening to see the Congress of South African Trade Unions calling people out on to the streets to protest against what is going on in Zimbabwe. Our duty as writers, commentators and public intellectuals is to encourage the new ANC leadership, even beg them, to do the right thing

Like their predecessors, they too will most likely be defensive and dismissive of their critics. Someone called me the other day to praise me for my book, and then said his only problem was that it focused too much on the individual leader instead of dealing with what is a systemic problem in African politics. Even leaders with the best intentions are likely to exhibit arrogance if their party is as well-ensconced in power as the ANC. I accept that argument, but I am also reading a piece by Salim Muwakkil on former Chicago mayor Harold Washington and Barack Obama. While Muwakkil always believed movements, not individuals, are the agents of change, there is no question that there is something about the political virtuosity of individual leaders that mobilises nations to reach for their better selves.

I sometimes look at the quality of the leadership of our institutions, including our cabinet, and feel a deep sense of embarrassment at the cast of characters. Our national revival must stand on strong institutional revival, but also on individual leaders with a modicum of talent, starting with the SABC.

Mangcu is executive chairman of the Platform for Public Deliberation and the author of To the Brink: The State of Democracy in South Africa.