PETER BRUCE: Zuma's close call and why he should be very afraid
Throwing the Guptas under the bus might be the only way to guarantee him succession success
That was much closer than I had expected. The secret no-confidence vote against President Jacob Zuma may have failed but the rebellion against him implied in the number is significant. It means about 40 ANC MPs voted for the motion. So this wasn’t just Pravin Gordhan, Makhosi Khoza and a few friends. It was a small army. They would be the third-largest party in Parliament if they split off (not that they would, I’m just dreaming here) but it points to a potentially massive split in the ANC in or after its December 2017 elective conference. If Zuma is able to secure his succession and his former wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, becomes president of the ANC (and its candidate in 2019 to lead the country), the vote on Tuesday portends not so much a split but a final division of the ANC. It is a serious matter. Democratic South Africa (in fact, post-World War 2 South Africa) does not know life without a dominant party, a “leader of society” as the ANC likes to call itself. Former DA leader...
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