So, the ANC’s Policy Conference is underway and the usual politicking has begun. Terms like “second transition” have become a popular set piece and, as Eusebius McKaiser says, it is mostly nonsense talk:

"Talk about a Second Transition falsely implies a successful First Transition. Given horrible ‘sins of incumbency’ like corruption, cadre deployment, politically connected businesspeople choking at the feeding trough, a poisonous nexus between politics and the security cluster, a failure to modernise the party, etc., it is a bit premature to imagine we’ve achieved adequate political transformation."

In other words, the president is actually referring to the “first transition”.