Beware a desperate Zuma

Can the ANC survive the all-out assault on Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan or will it split into two factions - one a band of grim cronies running the state's security machinery and the other left-leaning technocrats who want to return to core values?

In one sense, this is a moot question. The split has already happened. The ANC contains within it President Jacob Zuma and his band of shady cronies who have constructed a state within a state that essentially operates outside the law and constitution.

There is the Minister for State Security, David Mahlobo, who investigates people such as the public protector, Thuli Madonsela, for being a CIA spy.

There is the Minister of Police, Nathi Nhleko, defender of the fire-pool.

There is the Minerals Minister, Mosebenzi Zwane, who wants financial regulators shut down and Gupta bank accounts re-opened.

There is the Minister of Co-operative Governenance and Traditional Affairs, Des van Rooyen, who puts on camouflage T-shirts and demands that Gordhan face the music.

The other side of the divide is harder to define. It contains those who believe that the Zuma path is suicidal for the party, destroying its electability and imperiling the building of a democratic order focused on development.

Gordhan is obviously on that side of the fence, along with his deputy, Mcebisi Jonas, and former finance ministers Nhlanhla Nene and Trevor Manuel. Their ranks also include former minister Barbara Hogan and former Constitutional Court justice Zac Yacoob.

There is the former government spokesman, Themba Maseko, and the man who once helped prop Zuma up, former president Kgalema Motlanthe. Gauteng Premier David Makhura is on that side of the fence. He led a standing ovation for Gordhan as the news of his charging broke.

There are moments when it seems that the ANC's Gwede Mantashe and Jackson Mthembu are on that side of the fence.

Yesterday Mthembu issued a ringing endorsement of Gordhan's unimpeachable character.

There is perhaps no clearer illustration of the great divide than the statement issued by the ANC after the news that Gordhan had been summonsed.

The party called on Gordhan to submit to the legal process. Strike one for the Zuma camp. Then it commented that the court case would clear up the "untested conspiracy theories" about Gordhan. Strike two for the Gordhan camp.

For the moment these increasingly irreconcilable forces are contained within the ANC beneath the thinnest layer of political cling-wrap. The charging of Gordhan raises the stakes and the cling-wrap has stretched a little further.

This is happening a week after a coalition, Save South Africa, supported by some of those mentioned above, was formed by Sipho Pityana to oust Zuma. Among those already signed up are Manuel and Hogan.

Dubbed a "civil society" organisation, this could be the start of an organisational hub outside the ANC for the anti-Zuma faction.

The contours of the new battlefield have already been clearly drawn. Many skirmishes have already been fought through democratic institutions of accountability such as the courts and the public protector.

You can be sure that the Gordhan matter, should it ever come to trial, will be fought on this terrain and that he will win. Zuma probably calculates that he will have enough of a cloud over Gordhan to fire him.

It is the next phase that is frightening. Until now the Zuma faction has reluctantly played within the rules when it has been forced to do so. The Constitutional Court ruling on Nkandla illustrates how, when dragged through the seven circles of justice, Zuma eventually sulkily concedes.

The moment is arriving when the Zuma faction faces a stark choice: play by the rules and lose power, or shunt the rules aside and hold power against the democratic majority.