While the intense discussion about who will be in government after Friday's first session of the National Assembly dominates SA's public space, a major event has happened in our politics which has been slightly overshadowed. The ANC's decision to accept the results of the election which saw it falling well below 50% is momentous in every way. It is entirely to the party's credit, and may well entrench a convention that every party that loses votes in future elections will accept that outcome ... with, of course, one exception.

Over the years, there have been many examples of arrogance by some in the ANC -- the party that had so fully dominated our politics that it felt it was destined to do so in perpetuity.

When Jacob Zuma was president he claimed, confidently, that the ANC would be in power "until Jesus comes".

This arrogance extended to a blurring of the line between party and state. It even allowed Zuma to use the political power of the ANC to force the National Prosecuting Authority to withdraw corruption charges against him in 2009.

As recently as just over a month ago, just three weeks before the election, ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula used a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen worth more than R3-million to campaign in Inanda, KZN, an area marked by extreme poverty.

And yet, on the Sunday after the election, the ANC's leader, President Cyril Ramaphosa, stood up to accept the results.

He made the point that parties that did not accept the results were wrong, in what was obviously a jibe at Jacob Zuma's uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party.

Even before then, as it became clear the ANC had lost around 17 percentage points since 2019, the party's leaders had clearly...