AFTER the slack delivery of services, the biggest disappointment for South African voters must be Cope

The Congress of the People started like a Trojan horse. Within six months - in November 2009 - six million voted for it.

Here was the first credible and most serious challenge to the dominance of the ruling African National Congress - or so we thought.

Former ANC heavyweights and leaders of the fledgling Cope, Patrick Lekota and Mbhazima Shilowa, had condemned their former comrades for being corrupt, non-revolutionaries and power mongers who were only interested in enriching themselves, their families and cronies.

The two men, who dramatically divorced the ANC two years ago, are now sworn enemies - stalking each other like wild animals in the jungle.

Not only that. Their own Phillip Dexter is accusing the Cope leadership of the same greed and corruption that drove them from the ANC.

"Funds in the party are not managed well and are routinely abused, and while those excesses in Parliament were investigated and followed up in one instance, little or nothing has ever been done about the abuse of funds at provincial level and in the party HQ," Dexter said.

He added that Cope was "plagued by cliques and ... has its own Aurora".

The Aurora remark refers to the mine where workers have not been paid for more than a year while owners live in the lap of luxury.

No wonder that with a politician, as with the devil, you have to sup with a long spoon.