We're all graft-savvy after a year of misrule

Look back to this time a year ago and you'll notice something odd. Yes, there's still lots of noise about race, capitalism, inequality, corruption, incompetence and President Jacob Zuma's greasy relationship with the Guptas. But there's more. We're more mature now.

Listen to the radio and so many calls are about sovereign debt ratings. Where else in the world would this become a debate among the general public?

The cheerful fact is that Zuma's deranged attempt to install David "Des" van Rooyen as minister of finance a year ago woke us all up. We know now what Zuma is up to. The ministers the Guptas pick are so simple you can spot them a mile away.

The most profound thing Van Rooyen had to say upon his appointment was that he wanted to make the National Treasury "more accessible"; can you imagine anything more stupid?

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And now we watch a range of good men and women, mostly inside the ANC, try to stop Zuma or at least neutralise the effects of what he does.

We are, in other words, getting a political education few societies are fortunate not only to witness but to survive. And survive we will - this is not Zimbabwe or Venezuela.

Of course, Zuma could still strike at the heart of reason again. December seems the month for it and he has many mouths to feed. The problem with doling out patronage when you're a president is you have to keep it up.

But as the events of the ANC national executive committee meeting last weekend bear testimony, people aren't scared of Zuma any more. Some serious ANC weight stood up against him and he moves against them at his peril.

Once again you have to qualify statements like that. Zuma may have an entirely different view of where his demons lie.

But take someone like Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, a man totally in command of his brief.

Zuma is lucky to have him in the cabinet. Yet Gordhan, starting from last weekend, appears now to be almost daring Zuma to fire him.

First, he openly supported calls last weekend for the president to go.

Then, the day after the NEC meeting was declared closed and it was "agreed" that Zuma should stay, Gordhan tore a strip off a Zuma parasite, South African Revenue Service boss Tom Moyane, calling him and his team "unco-operative and unaccountable". That's serious stuff. Moyane is as close to Zuma as it is possible for another man to be.

block_quotes_start What Gordhan has done is square up to Zuma and tell him that he cannot get his nuclear deal done. There will be no state guarantees block_quotes_end

Then Business Day appears on Friday with a front-page lead saying the Treasury won't support Eskom's intention to procure nuclear power reactors. This is both technically and politically huge.

Eskom, bless it, fought for, and was recently given (by a relieved Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson), control over the nuclear build Zuma wants so badly. Zuma reckoned without outgoing Eskom CEO Brian Molefe's sensitivity to being exposed as a Gupta pawn but he still wants the nuclear deal (in whatever shape or size or whoever leads it) to go ahead.

He doesn't care how, he isn't a detail guy.

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But here's the thing. Eskom has bragged that it has the balance sheet to fund a modest nuclear order. Perhaps, but no reactor manufacturer, not even a desperate Russian one, is going to contemplate for a nanosecond selling one to Eskom without a state guarantee that it'll be paid for.

That is what Gordhan has now declined to do. The Treasury has R350-billion in outstanding guarantees to Eskom and insists they be used for the reason they were first put in place - to build coal-fired power stations.

What Gordhan has done is square up to Zuma and tell him that he cannot get his nuclear deal done. There will be no state guarantees.

Zuma needs the deal. Not, as many bar-room tales have it, that he has been paid for it and fears Vladimir Putin's wrath if he doesn't deliver. But, simply because no payments have been made and no patronage has been distributed because of the promised nuclear deal, Zuma is the weaker for it. And the consequences of weakness for a man like him are dire.

It is December. One more time a finance minister is standing up to the president. Will the president do something foolish again? The saddest part of our story, right now, is that we simply do not know. We cannot trust the president.