Looks like I might have underestimated the scale of public disapproval of Jacob Zuma’s latest fling: it dominated the news agenda in a week that ended with the President Making a public apology, and saying he needed to take some “time out” to rest. Now he faces a no confidence motion, courtesy of the opposition Congress of the People, when Parliament resumes this week.

It was obvious that the president’s political adversaries, like Helen Zille and Patricia de Lille, would capitalise on the chance to hector a man whose impressive libido is an obvious target for moralistic criticism. Zille’s shrill claim that Zuma’s philandering was as damaging to the fight against HIV/Aids as Thabo Mbeki’s denialism was absurdly disproportionate. More interesting has been the reaction of his political allies, who usually rush to defend him in strident language at the slightest whiff of trouble.

The SA Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions, for example, were loud supporters when Zuma was threatened by corruption charges a couple of years ago. But the former’s officials have made no attempt to defend his behaviour, while the latter body issued a statement saying it would not pass judgement. It did however say that to defeat the HIV/Aids pandemic it was crucial to “abstain from sexual activity from as long possible…be faithful…condomise” – in other words, telling the country’s youth to look at what their president does and do the opposite. Hardly a ringing endorsement.

And there’s been a similarly stony reaction from many of those who defended Zuma’s polygamy on the grounds that he was simply partaking in an ancient way of life. Even the Daily Sun – the country’s most popular tabloid, which has hitherto backed Zuma to the hilt – ran a front-page headline condemning him. The Zulu custom of polygamy comes with strict rules attached; by flouting them Zuma might seem to have undermined the legitimacy of the whole tradition. As Charlotte Bauer writes in the Mail & Guardian, “nobody has mocked the institution of polygamy as Zuma has mocked it”.

Hugo Rifkind asked in The Times recently why Zuma hasn’t attained Silvio Berlusconi’s status of an international joke figure, given the parallels between their sexual indiscretions; Rifkind puts it down to foreign journalists’ fear of seeming like “old-school, broad brush” racists.

Within South Africa itself, Zuma has a while to go before he matches Berlusconi’s capacity to anger and embarrass his own people. But as one tabloid billboard put it today, this looks like it could be the week where he “lost his shine” for many of his compatriots, including a portion of his passionate working-class support base. In a year when the world’s eyes will be on South Africa, the last thing anyone wants is its president making a laughing stock of himself.

Fresh from his last marriage last month, Zuma still has yet another wedding to get through, to fiancee Bongi Ngema. But his honeymoon with the South African people appears to be over.