I Didn't Do It for You: How the World used and Abused a Small African Nation, by Michela Wrong, is a sobering account of the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea and how, despite their genetic closeness, they are prepared to blow each other out of existence in their quest for sovereignty. It is the old story of yet another African bloc struggling with democracy.

Notwithstanding their complex histories, their failure to democratise has more to do with the vanities and egos of two power-obsessed leaders than with leaving a democratic legacy for future generations.

The primitive accumulation of power in the form of military might and, in their case, playing off one superpower against another, has ironically left them weak in their quest for self-determination

Parliament is dead, the media is compromised, MPs self-serving. And this lies at the heart of conflict on the continent.

The Mbeki-Zuma soap opera is another manifestation of the same. When Mondli Makhanya (Sunday Times November 6) says all analysts had missed "the level of simmering discontent", his "all" of course excludes those from other political camps who view this feud through a different lens and who provide more compelling arguments than the hackneyed explanations offered by the leftist orthodoxy.

While he credits the media for identifying the problem as a "brutal battle for control of the ANC", he claims to have the only insight, namely that this is "a rebellion against the head of state by the party that runs the state".

His conclusion - that the solution to the current debacle is for Mbeki to take the ANC and the state with him and "to humble himself and ask what he has contributed to the climate of dissent" - is to expect an abusive parent to continue to look after the child because there is no better.

Many of us have predicted that Mbeki's rule could only lead to the kind of chaos we are witnessing today, because the belief that the solution to the current debacle is to be found within the ANC alone is deeply flawed; the ANC is a master at sowing the seeds of its own destruction.

Its modus operandi is fundamentally anti-democratic, moulded in the belief that it alone should control all the levers of power. This obsession is finally blowing up in its face. The National Prosecuting Authority, the Scorpions, the public protector, the intelligence services and even the police have all become servants of the ruling party, and now that the party is divided, they too are divided.

Anthony Butler, a political science professor, concurs with Makhanya and comes up with an even more bizarre analysis (Business Day, November 9). Recognising all the faults of the ruling party, he nevertheless concludes that: "In these circumstances, the best scenario may well be 15 or 20 years of ANC dominance - creating a period of stability during which liberal institutions can entrench their authority.

"The government will face a real but unrealised threat of defeat by a credible opposition. Meanwhile, citizens will use other mechanisms of accountability to limit the abuse of executive power. When the ANC eventually begins to lose its electoral and organisational power, liberal institutions will by then be robust enough to cope with the immense internal strains generated by a more fluid political system."

This is like arguing that US President George Bush should remain in power because only he can quell the unrest and political chaos in Iraq.

Butler's analysis also fails to recognise that it takes about 15 to 20 years to undo democracy in Africa. When political chaos reigns, state and civil society institutions do not become stronger. Their powers are eroded by partisan politics, especially where the majority party becomes the party of unfettered power and patronage.

Under such circumstances, parliament readily submits to the executive and lacks the balls to hold government accountable, as we have seen here with the erosion of Scopa (the standing committee on parliamentary accounts), the Scorpions and others. As in Zimbabwe and other African countries, state institutions are easily destroyed by an overweening executive and also hard to resurrect once they are down.

The Mbeki-Zuma feud is a clash between the politics of exile and the politics of democracy. Both leaders are products of the machinations of exile and the Stalinist culture they imported into the Union Buildings once Mbeki assumed office, obliterating the democratic ethos Nelson Mandela left behind.

What we are witnessing on the streets and within ANC structures is a conflict between the masses nurtured on a diet of consultation, dialogue and debate, encouraged by the United Democratic Front, and the closed society of ideological battles, conspiracies, intelligence, spies and police infiltration so typical of liberation movements in exile. When the ruling party uses state resources to control and maintain power, it is a sure recipe for disaster.

The paranoia of the ANC in exile was understandable, but to perpetuate that modus operandi under a completely different dispensation is to look for trouble. All of us who are familiar with that culture hoped it would never take root here; but it has predictably taken a course all of us feared would happen.

The politics of exile is threatening to destroy this country because we, who know better, are allowing it to happen.

Some of us will continue to subscribe to lame-duck analyses like those of Adam Habib, Makhanya, Butler and others who assume the answer lies within the ANC, and that the battle for the hearts and soul of the masses has to do with economics alone.

This kind of reductionism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the more those analysts think our salvation lies within the very party that is destroying us, the more they need a drastic course in the fundamentals of democracy.

The tenure of Tony Blair, the British prime minister, is under threat because his own party is holding him accountable. Equally, Bush's presidency is vulnerable because his own constituency is raising questions about the secrets and lies behind a war that has caused international repercussions.

While we sanctimoniously batter western democracies and their leaders for their lack of judgment and undemocratic behaviour, they at least have democratic mechanisms and electorates that will vote them out of office at the next election.

Here we have no such hope. Parliament is dead, the media is compromised, MPs are self-serving and the Chapter 9 institutions (established to support constitutional democracy) are a joke.

To suggest, as Makhanya does, that "unless the power and legitimacy of [Mbeki's] office is restored in the minds of party activists, the real casualties will be ... constitutionalism, respect for the rule of law, clean governance and sound policy-making" is a myopic perspective.

We are in crisis precisely because of the ANC. The institutions of parliament that should ensure accountability and entrench democracy are all compromised and there is not one that lives up to constitutional scrutiny.

The constitution is a direct challenge to a Stalinist modus operandi. A party that believes its future is wrapped up with the future of the country, regardless, will try to retain power, even if it ruins the country in the process.

Unless analysts honestly engage with the language of democracy, party political competition, the role of opposition, the rule of law and democratic governance, no market or socialist economy will provide the goods and services a poor nation like South Africa needs. Democracies work so much better in open, transparent and uncorrupt societies where human rights and the rule of law are pre-eminent.

For as long as we think our salvation lies within a party that is fundamentally corrupt and undemocratic, I will find solace in the bumper sticker that says: "God is dead, Marx is dead and I'm not feeling too well myself!"