Until the firing last week of Pravin Gordhan and Mcebisi Jonas, the top leadership of the ANC defaulted to closing ranks around Jacob Zuma. They seemed most worried, not about the health of the economy or rising unemployment or the delivery of social grants, but their political survival, keeping their noses clean in the hope that they will be around long enough to pick up the pieces when (and if) Zuma goes. In the process they have become part of the problem, the stony-faced Members of Parliament watching on at the theatre of the National Assembly, the wannabe leaders of tomorrow who always will be, apparently incapable of taking a stance. This has changed for some with President Zuma’s Night of the Long Knives. But moral outrage will only take them so far. If South Africa’s President is to come from a faction outside of the Zuma's, someone close to power needs to display leadership. If they fail to do so, without staking out their personal position and politics, without risking ski...

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