Anyone who has been keeping abreast of political and social developments in South Africa over the past few years would not have been surprised by the results of the local government elections held last week.

The ruling African National Congress (ANC) suffered a humiliating setback to the main Opposition Democratic Alliance in a vote that was largely seen as a referendum on the leadership of the country’s scandal-tainted president, Mr Jacob Zuma.

Political analysts in South Africa have pointed out that this is the ANC’s worst election result since the end of white-minority rule 22 years ago, falling below 60 per cent of the vote for the first time.

The Democratic Alliance, led by Mr Mmusi Maimane, topped the poll in the capital Pretoria, winning 93 of the 214 seats. The ANC took 89 seats.

The ANC also lost its majority in the business capital Johannesburg, and, most humiliatingly, in Port Elizabeth, which is officially known as Nelson Mandela Bay in honour of the late former ANC leader, South African president and revered freedom fighter.

The ANC is a party with a proud history. It was founded by Mr John Langalibalele Dube on January 8, 1912 in Bloemfontein as the South African Native National Congress with the main aim of ending the despicable, inhuman system of apartheid and giving blacks and mixed race Africans the right to vote.

After decades of struggle, during which many South Africans sacrificed their lives, the ANC achieved its objective, and in 1994 Mr Mandela was elected president of post-apartheid South Africa.

Although the ANC remains the dominant party in South Africa today, its leadership is unfortunately held by Mr Zuma, who has tarnished its image and shamed the legacy of Mr Mandela and the many other brave South Africans who fought for the freedoms that the once oppressed people of that country now enjoy.

Indeed, Mr Zuma and the people around him who support his actions have also delivered a slap to the face of the countries, like Jamaica, that opposed the former racist regime in South Africa.

A day before the August 3 local government election, the ANC’s national chairperson, Ms Baleka Mbete, in a message to the party’s candidates urged them “to draw on and emulate the values”, not just of the great leaders of the ANC, like the late Mr Mandela, but the founding values of the organisation itself.

“These values,” she pointed out on the ANC website, “include selflessness, humility, and discipline, and above all, an unwavering commitment to the communities they have been elected to serve.”

Based on Mr Zuma’s behaviour over the years, we’re not convinced that he shares or cares to uphold these commendable values.

Easily one of the best analyses of last week’s vote that we have come across is that by Mr Mathews Phosa, a former treasurer of the ANC. “The clever blacks have spoken,” he is reported to have said, using the same “clever blacks” phrase that Mr Zuma once used to describe urban youngsters who apparently don’t feel as comfortable with the ANC as their counterparts in rural communities.

Mr Cyril Ramaphosa, the ANC deputy leader, has said the party would heed the electorate’s message. In time we will see if this election is, as Mr Maimane said on Saturday, “a tipping point for the people of South Africa”.