The ANC will rue the day they decided - against all logic - that Jacob Zuma shall be president of the country. Today the man is seen by many as nothing more than an object of comic relief.
No wonder journalists in Davos, Switzerland, could not resist the urge to use him to entertain themselves.
Luckily for Zuma, while South Africans wallow in embarrassment and shame, he appears very much at ease with his "culture-induced" indiscretions.
His affable and warm personality aside, Zuma's shortcomings are just so glaring that in a normal country he would not be allowed a look-in at the presidential palace.
Ironically, the ANC faction that brought Zuma to power made the same mistake as Thabo Mbeki, who foolishly wanted to prove mainstream medical scientists wrong with his crackpot Aids denialist theories.
Through Zuma the ANC wanted to prove to the world that an uneducated man from a humble rural background could lead a modern state to prosperity. Needless to say, this grandiosely romanticised project has backfired spectacularly.
Zuma's latest gaffe makes for intriguing times in the faction-riddled ANC. No doubt Zuma's handlers in Cosatu and the SACP must be very worried. They will now find it difficult to bulldoze other factions within the ANC-led alliance to accept a second term for Zuma as fait accompli.
In fact, it is not inconceivable that other factions will be emboldened by this "love child" saga to find their voice and even agitate for Zuma's "recall". After all, a precedent has been set.
However, the very prospect of Zuma's recall will have its own repercussions. Zuma's liaisons with convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik tell us that he is not unfamiliar with the notion of corruption.
Lest we forget, the man went to extraordinary lengths to avoid his own day in court. Now that it is almost certain that a second term is out of question, Msholozi might need to make the proverbial hay while the sun is still shining.
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