I AM sure running a country is no child's play. As South Africans, history has touched us all in different ways and our needs are therefore different and complex.

President Jacob Zuma and his administration have a mammoth task ahead.

Governing a country as tumultuous as ours is no task for the faint-hearted.

I may not know much about the intricacies of government and providing the elusive "better life for all", but I am convinced that certain behaviour by our leaders is the antithesis of this ideal.

Take the president's recent door-to-door tour of Western Cape.

While at the Franschoek Valley in the Cape Winelands, Zuma told members of the community that those who live in appalling conditions are to blame for their own plight if they do not use their vote to remove governing parties that are not delivering services to them.

Very cogent and wise words indeed, but he spoilt it all by implying that the Democratic Alliance, which is the governing party in the province and the city of Cape Town was responsible for the poverty.

In expressing his "shock" at the squalor at the Langrecht informal settlement, Zuma said: "When a government is not doing well, you don't exercise your constitutional right to take out that government and put a government you want.

"What you do is you complain, when you have the vote to exercise to help people to help you from that situation. It's a two-way street."

The hypocrisy of his statement cannot go unchallenged.

The essence of the president's message is true and valid, but then he must not just stop at DA-led constituencies, but preach the same message to ANC-led provinces and municipalities where service delivery protests against his government and party have flared up over the years.

Does he condemn the voting pattern there as well?

The president demonstrates jaw-dropping ignorance of events in Western Cape.

Unlike voters elsewhere, residents of the Western Cape and the city of Cape Town have exercised their "constitutional right to take out that government and put in a government" they "want".

Does Zuma need to be reminded that the ANC was in charge of the province for five years until the last national polls and ran the city, also for five years, until the last local government elections in 2006?

And before that, the ANC ran the province in coalition with the now defunct NNP.

The poverty and squalor continued under his party's watch and hence at the last national and local government elections, the people of that province and city did exactly what Zuma advised. They voted for - to use Zuma's words - "people to help you from that situation".

If only Zuma had given voters this advice when the ANC was in power there, and if only he would be even more consistent and take this same message to Balfour, Diepsloot, Orange Farm, Free State, North West - every corner of this country that has had major delivery protests should hear this message.

It would seem Zuma's message is only relevant in DA-led municipalities.

I bet some lazy minds are already calling me a DA sympathiser. My comments are not in support of any party, but rather a condemnation of hypocrisy.

I actually think all DA, ANC and former NNP politicians in the Western Cape must take collective responsibility for the state of affairs in the province because they have all, at various stages in our recent history, had an opportunity to change the lives of citizens there.

Zuma has obviously taken a leaf out of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs minister Sicelo Shiceka's book.

Shiceka arrogantly stated that unenclosed toilets would never appear under ANC rule, yet when it was revealed that the same situation exists in ANC-led Kwadebeka in KwaZulu-Natal and the Samora Machel settlement, he did not utter a word.

Using people's sad plight for political point-scoring is childish, cruel and insensitive.

This hypocrisy that has become so pervasive in our politics has to stop.

And Mr President, enough of you and your ministers being "shocked' at the poverty you see when you occasionally visit the poor. It has been there for ages. Where have you been?