The system works. The conviction of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, African National Congress MP, Womens League president and national executive committee member, shows that the criminal justice system will convict even the politically most powerful.

It also worked in February when ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni was convicted on corruption charges.

And the fact that the Scorpions are pursuing arms deal-linked corruption charges against Deputy President Jacob Zuma as well as former transport minister Mac Maharaj also indicates the genesis of a prosecutorial system independent of the political lean-to that characterises so many other countries on the continent.

So far, so good. There is one more step necessary to ensure the body politic remains squeaky clean. And that is for the ANC, as a party, to be more forthright in its condemnation of the greedy and the unaccountable. Supporters of Madikizela-Mandela try to paint her as an innocent in the hands of an unscrupulous broker, who made her sign loan-forms unwittingly.

Last week lawyers in another court case to forestall her disciplining by Parliament tried to portray her as a schoolyard innocent facing the wrath of parliamentary whips. What nonsense. Madikizela-Mandela is a serial delinquent. The court decided her fate on Thursday.

Now the ANC must follow suit with both her and its other-child-gone-wrong, Yengeni. But, as it did in the immediate aftermath of the Yengeni judgement, the ANC has fallen short of condemnation and sanction. Efforts to secure an official party response to Madikizela-Mandelas sentencing met with the run-around.

Clearly, the ANC has no position and no clear plan, though some leaders have tried to persuade Madikizela-Mandela to stand down from her parliamentary post.

The party must take stronger action against both Madikizela-Mandela and Yengeni by using the ANC disciplinary code to take them to task and to relieve them of all executive duties. Anything less will surely be construed as thumbing its nose at the justice system.

The omens are not good. Madikizela-Mandelas misdemeanours are legend, yet she holds several leadership positions. Yengeni continues to hold party office and is even part of the team sorting out the Eastern Cape. Could it be because both are party populists and vote-catchers? Or is there a deeper malaise in the ANC that makes it unable to practise the doctrine of clean government it preaches?

With acknowledgements to the Editor and the Mail and Guardian.