Bellicose broadcasts from a war room near you

The ANC should give up now with "war rooms". It is not at war and when it was it needed a lot of help.

We are all, I'm sure, hugely enjoying the calamitous end of the 2016 election's fake digital news "war room" story as it unfolds. And who can forget the "war room" Cyril Ramaphosa was supposed to be running in response to Eskom's load-shedding a few years back?

Just like the 2016 war room was secret, so was the Eskom crisis war room a mystery. Did it ever meet? Did it work? Either Brian Molefe saved Eskom or the fact that load-shedding shut down the local smelting industry did, by creating a natural surplus.

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Rather let there be a little light. Please? Surely? Watching ANC factions shadow-boxing ahead of December's elective conference is excruciating. Nothing survives.

Serious hearings in parliament about legislation that could see us remain in or be ejected from the top league of the world banking system are reduced to intellectual rubble by hysterical claims that black business would be victims if it were passed. But it has already been passed by the same (and largely black) parliament!

As December 2017 approaches, watch the level of debate fall further than your worst fears. It would be nice to hear potential candidates talking about the value of the rand, detailed and productive ways to encourage inclusive economic growth and how tax policy might be able to encourage that, how to deal with a new era in US foreign policy or ways to improve the management of state-owned companies.

Don't hold your breath. A policy conference midyear will instead end with blood-curdling calls for more "radical economic transformation" or "cutting the banks down to size". There'll be no detail, just noise.

The point about the ANC policy conference that precedes the leadership election is that it has to be as aggressive as possible to obscure the economic disaster Jacob Zuma has actually presided over. You don't survive such an event by being thoughtful. You have to breathe fire. It is the start of your 2019 general election campaign.

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Zuma's choice as successor in December, will by tomorrow be joining the fray.

This week may indeed be tumultuous. Zuma needs to secure her a cabinet-level job, to get her the state resources - an office, staff and a travel budget - to start campaigning for the leadership.

Perhaps she and her ex will start a war room of their own. The targets? Ramaphosa, Zweli Mkhize and even young Ace Magashule and the delightful Baleka Mbete. Anyone who might be a rival later.

For some reason the ANC Youth League, which a few months ago said it would stand with the ANC Women's League when selecting a successor to Jacob, has suddenly parted ways. It is looking at Ace, premier these days of the Free State but a man with lots to lose if the succession goes to Ramaphosa or Mkhize.

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The ANCYL switch is intriguing and I have a theory about it. Its leader, Collen Maine ("Oros", as Julius Malema calls him) lives in an expensive house he cannot possibly afford. The bond came by way of an Indian bank loan organised by the Gupta family. But why would a Gupta proxy such as Maine not be backing Nkosazana?

Because, I calculate, she has figured out that the Guptas are bad news and doesn't want much to do with them and they know it.

The Guptas made Nkosazana "South African of the Year" at a glittering event on their TV channel in 2015 but last November the event was suddenly cancelled (Beyoncé was the booked entertainment) due to "logistical reasons".

Yeah, right. It was cancelled because Jacob Zuma decided not to attend and that was because Nkosazana warned him it would damage, not enhance, her chances of succeeding him. So the Guptas have a new candidate. Ace.

And yes, Zuma is trying to distance himself from the Guptas. He is constrained in this by the hold they have over his son, Duduzane, the family's principal local "business partner". But his job now is to protect Nkosazana and part of that is steering clear of the Saxonwold shebeen.

Shame, I do so hope the 2016 South African of the Year award banquet still goes ahead. Perhaps the Guptas could insert it into the ANC policy conference festivities. Everything has its price, even if it has no value.