On Monday the ANC officially announced what we had all been expecting. The party's birthday celebrations in the week of January 8, to have been hosted in Seleteng village in Ga-Mphahlele, had been called off due to Covid-19.
It would not have taken a rocket scientist to make this deduction after Health Minister Zweli Mkhize announced that South Africa was going through a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, and President Cyril Ramaphosa subsequently announced more stringent measures to arrest the rise in infections.
For the ANC, January 8 is almost sacrosanct and allows the party faithful to reflect while the leadership spells out the agenda for the year.
The cancellation of the jamboree perhaps also gives us an indication of how next year's local government election campaign will be conducted – targeted and through electronic channels.
The ANC's birthday celebrations and the political messaging informs (not always) what can be expected in the State of the Nation Address.
But in recent years the January 8 week has also taken on a sordid image, moving away from what the ANC in exile, and under the leadership of Oliver Tambo, had envisaged.
One shudders to think how a place like Seleteng village, the birthplace of former ANC president Sefako Makgatho, would have gelled with tenderpreneurs, conspicuous shows of consumption and hangers-on hoping for a seat on the gravy train.
Thankfully Covid-19 has spared the ANC from scrutiny. Ramaphosa can read his statement on January 8, and those who wish to digest it can nitpick the details, but it certainly won't be a super-spreader event.
Political Bureau