On Wednesday morning, Pravin Gordhan will wake up, put on a suit and tie, and walk out to face a nation and the world.In his hands he will hold the hopes of many.Business leaders who have been meeting him will hope that he can put together the words and the plans that will help stave off damaging ratings agency downgrades.Farmers will hope for a rescue package to offset the ravages of devastating drought.Poor people - from Tzaneen, in Limpopo, to Umbumbulu, in KwaZulu-Natal - will hope for some relief as everything around them suddenly becomes more expensive. Their children cry for food as prices skyrocket.After six years of a lacklustre presidency and a bloated, spineless government that has failed to implement its own plans, Gordhan is the last hope, the last line of defence.As he steps up to the podium of the National Assembly, it will not help to look towards President Jacob Zuma for help.That is the problem: perhaps the biggest problem. Zuma is not the solution.Those Gordhan will address in the chamber will not help in this mammoth task, either.The MPs around him have failed to hold the executive accountable as the economy shrank, crime worsened, unemployment grew and inequality widened.For seven years Hansard has recorded millions of their words and yet, on Wednesday, as Gordhan walks to that podium, they will all be empty words. These MPs have failed those whom they should be serving.The speech that Gordhan will read will be full of numbers and projections. It will be full of plans and time lines. It will promise to achieve. It will ask us to tighten our belts. It will hit us with higher taxes. Gordhan can be trusted to do and say all the right things.The truth, however, is that the minister does not, on his own, have the vital ingredient to stave off a ratings downgrade.For that to happen he needs to put something on the table that can only come from the very top.He needs to rebuild the confidence and trust in South Africa that the nation, and the international community, has lost.The events of December l, when Zuma inexplicably fired his trusted and respected finance minister, Nhlanhla Nene, and replaced him with a nonentity (last week the ANC's deputy secretary-general, Jessie Duarte, told Business Day newspaper that she had to google Des van Rooyen to find out who he was), sucked confidence in South Africa's economic management out of the system.The replacement of Van Rooyen with Gordhan brought some calm back, but it did not deal sufficiently with the confidence that has been lost.What is exacerbating things is that Zuma, in interviews this year, has remained adamant that there was nothing wrong with his actions. As long as he holds on to this view the possibility that he will repeat it, or do something similarly bone-headed, remains.Zuma's State of the Nation speech gave nothing to Gordhan or the world to work with.He mouthed all the right words, even lifting phrases out of documents business leaders had sent to him, but actions such as kowtowing to Cosatu on the pension reform laws show a leader who does not pay attention to detail (Zuma did sign the law, after all), and has no conviction and vision for his country. After he caved in to unions on salaries last year, the latest capitulation does nothing to build confidence.Gordhan is a man under pressure from within and without. The ANC's national general council in October came out guns blazing on the National Health Insurance scheme, asking pointedly that the Treasury make money available for the project.Can he stand up against his comrades?What about Zuma's assertion that we will embark on a nuclear building programme costing unknown billions.Can Gordhan stand up against his comrade?What about the allegations of patronage and corruption already swirling around this programme?Then there is the G-word: growth. The economy has ground to a halt since former president Thabo Mbeki left the stage and the bumbling Zuma took over.The Zuma administration has for years been telling us that this is because of the global economic decline.The truth is that a large part of the problem is failure here at home to implement the National Development Plan.If this Budget does not indicate a seriousness on the part of Zuma - not just on the part of the Treasury - to implement tough new policies, set targets and implement them, then everyone can shout until they are blue in the face about attempts to stave off a rating downgrading but that inevitability will not be stopped.We will soon, very soon, be junk investment grade.We need to pray for Gordhan on Wednesday.We must pray even harder for the man who holds the key: President Zuma...