Will the ANC Women's League get up and scrub clean inside the once-glorious movement?

Scrubbing a burnt pot is a hard, dirty job that someone has to do some of the time. It is mostly a thankless and lonely job performed by women as a labour of love for their families.

ANC veteran Naledi Pandor was most probably speaking from experience when she brought up this job as a metaphor for the "clean-up and renewal" her party's leader has been promising since eons ago.

The "old woman" – a term of derision allegedly used by some of her comrades against her – spoke truth to power, as they say, at the late party veteran Gertrude Shope's memorial event on Sunday.

The tougher the stains, grime or crust at the bottom of the pot, the tougher the implements one needs to use to clean the pot. You can’t use a simple sponge to clean all pots; some need those steel or copper wool scrapers. I reckon the ANC pot will need some vinegar or baking soda treatment to soften the stains followed by some hard scrubbing.

Who will do it?

Pandor spoke many truths that even Comrade Secretary General Fikile Mbalula couldn’t deny, including that the once-glorious movement had “lost its glory” and was now being viewed by “the people” with disdain, horror and shame.

Unfortunately for the people and the die-hard comrades still dreaming and pining for renewal, it doesn’t look like there will be any genuine renewal or steel wool cleanup any time soon.

Another set of truths about badly burnt pots is that the longer they are left uncleaned, the worse they become; you can’t do it without sacrificing something and getting a bit dirty yourself; and, sadly, the pot remains useless until it is cleaned.

Pandor also spoke about what to do with leaders who “fail in their duties”, but – again – don’t hold your breath waiting for someone to “hold them to account, no matter their position”.

The most poignant of the truths the wise old woman spoke was this: “There is nothing worse in an organisation or in a country than a leader who has no solution. We can’t be asking someone else ‘how do we solve this?’ The people are looking to us to resolve it.”

But will the ANC Women’s League rise up and arrest the decline, scrape the movement clean and glorious again?