“I was the decoy. While Helen Zille was calling me names, Jacob Zuma was sprinting to the Union Buildings.”

ANC Youth League president Julius Malema’s boast at Walter Sisulu University in East London just before voting day could be the epitaph for this election. The Democratic Alliance leader allowed herself to be distracted from her own strengths.

What was overlooked was that this election was about two questions: which party would be the champion of the constitution, and which party would be the champion of delivery.

Zille nailed the first, and got distracted from the second, despite a track record that put her in a strong position to claim she could deliver against an ANC taking the heat for widespread delivery failure.

From the beginning of the campaign the DA was in tune with most of the media, the other opposition parties, as well as important voices in the law, the church and academia in reflecting concern about a Jacob Zuma presidency.

The DA got carried away with success. Zille called South Africa a failed state, said it was becoming like Zimbabwe, and even launched criticism of the image of Nelson Mandela, a natural ally in any fight for the constitution.

These were distractions. They went too far and took of her off message. The carefully crafted image of the DA as different from the former leader Tony Leon’s party went up in smoke.

It did not need to happen. Zille is different from Leon. She has a struggle track record she can be proud of. Tarring her with racial epithets demeans only her accusers.

But the constitutional issue – whether Zuma will be dangerous for the constitution, whether he will interfere with the judiciary, whether he can remove the cloud over his presidency – was only one theme in this campaign. And it was the theme that resonated most with the middle class and the elite.

The other theme was service delivery, and it matters to the vast body of poor and working class ANC voters, which is where new opposition votes must come from.

That distinction was apparent at campaign events of all the parties. It crossed party lines.

At Finance Minister Trevor Manuel’s appearance at the upmarket Vineyard Hotel in Cape Town, a respectful ANC crowd nevertheless asked a host of highbrow questions about the direction of the ANC. The biggest applause was reserved for an ANC questioner who asked why the ruling party failed to tell voters before the election who their candidate for premier was.

But in the DA stronghold of Mitchell’s Plein, a DA vote-getting walk solicited one endlessly repeated question from voters: “When will I get a house?”

To borrow from the famous sign (“It’s the economy, stupid”) in Bill Clinton’s campaign war room when he ran for US president in 1992: It’s about delivery, stupid.

Most of the parties’ slogans missed this point. Several borrowed from Barack Obama. They knew that Obama won in the US last year on the “change” slogan, so they put the word on their posters. But a slogan only captures public imagination if it’s linked to a coherent campaign theme. Otherwise its just ink on cardboard.

The ANC’s early slogan was no better. “Together we can do more” contradicted the image of the ANC which over recent years has reminded voters of anything but togetherness.

But then they got focussed. They began to link their brand to better health, better education and more jobs. In short, service delivery. Slogans alone would not have been enough. But there were other factors that made it believable.

South African voters follow politics closely. They knew that what happened in Polokwane was that the union federation Cosatu and others on the left ousted Thabo Mbeki as president. And Cosatu has a track record of fighting Mbeki’s ANC for delivery.

After Mbeki’s defeat, a strong health minister was appointed, and Barbara Hogan has begun to deliver. A new health scheme for the poor was leaked to the media, which also reported that she would survive her unprecedented criticism of cabinet colleagues for refusing a visa to the Dalai Lama.

Also leaked was news that Trevor Manuel will remain in government, probably in a very powerful position though not as finance minister. That’s a double win. The left wanted him out of that post, but the business community will be reassured that he will retain, or even gain in influence.

The albatross of non-delivery was on the Mbeki ANC’s back. Wavering poor and working class voters would support whoever could escape it. COPE had almost no chance. Their posters of Terror Lekota and Dr Alan Boesak did not signify a rejection of Mbeki’s rule. They underlined it.

COPE would get votes, but they’d be the votes of Mbeki-ites, of disgruntled victims of Polokwane, of whatever factions felt alienated by the rise of Zuma.

The DA entered this race with a real shot at the delivery vote, at least beginning a process of drawing at the margins of traditional, legacy black ANC support.

It had two things going for it. Zille’s track record does inspire support. She is believed to have begun to deliver. Her image is one of honesty, hard work and efficiency. And she seemed on a track that would open the door to new black leaders who would recast the party image as actively multiracial.

Then in walked Julius Malema, decoy-in-chief.

Zille began debating him. Zuma kept to his play-sheet, building the support he needed to build, not getting distracted.

The Zille DA failed to capitalise on its second strength, its opening to new possibilities of broader, multiracial leadership. But for whatever reason, Zille seemed to campaign alone. Her colleagues, new and old, black and white, were rarely to be seen. To the public, it still looked like a one-person band. A lost opportunity.

Only the ANC and the DA will get to deliver, with the DA running the Western Cape and Cape Town, and the ANC running everything else. We voters will see if campaign promises translate into service delivery. A campaign is a treacherous thing. It can bring victory, or a chance to lick wounds and learn from mistakes. Watch that space.

John Matisonn is the Director of Public Dialogue for the Difficult Dialogues programme.