How refreshing to see tens of thousands of protesters take to the streets without trashing hawkers' stalls, smashing shop windows, blockading roads, or setting fire to cars. Unfortunately, however, the outrage on display on Friday last week will dissipate in disappointment unless translated into a political plan focused on the general election due in 2019.
First immediate objective must be to force President Jacob Zuma from office in next Monday's parliamentary no-confidence vote. The likelihood is that the vote will fail. This will demonstrate yet again that the problem South Africa faces is not Mr Zuma himself but the fact that the African National Congress (ANC) has once again sustained him in power.
For any strategy to have the chance of effectiveness, it must operate on the assumption that the ANC will keep on sustaining Mr Zuma in power unless the costs of doing so are steadily and systematically raised. So all those struggle "stalwarts" calling upon the rest of us to help "save South Africa" will have to start coming clean.
They all have the vote and they need to tell us how they plan to use it in the 2019 election. They need to disclose whether they will join all those who already vote against the ANC. They want everyone to help save South Africa. So they need to explain whether or not they themselves will continue to vote for a party that is more interested in saving Mr Zuma.
If the stalwarts do not wield the franchise against the ANC, all their protestations, like those of Gwede Mantashe, Cyril Ramaphosa, and Pravin Gordhan, will turn out to be little more than "sound and fury signifying nothing". The same goes for the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party, who also supposedly want to be shot of Mr Zuma.
Sipho Pityana, convener of "save South Africa", claims that "co-ordinated, united public protest is the only way to stop further state capture and to defend our democracy." This is a delusion. To pretend it is the "only way" is to lead people up the garden path. It is also to duck the responsibility of engaging in the long struggle to mobilise votes against the ANC.