By now, we have all seen the numbers in the final stretch leading up to the ANC's elective conference in Johannesburg this week.
Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa's CR17 campaign holds a handy lead over Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma's NDZ hopefuls. Yet there is no guarantee that he has it in the bag.
As the delegates head to Nasrec, there are four interrelated aspects that ensure analysts are loath to call a result too early.
These involve the nonbinding nature of the branch decision, vote-buying, the secret ballot and the type of delegate attending the conference.
First, the branch's preference is not binding on the delegate - not even formally. This we learnt in 2007 when enraged phone calls reached Western Cape journalists from a specific ANC branch on the Cape Flats which, in the interests of not reigniting fury past, shall for the moment remain nameless.Of course, one has to allow for losers' sour grapes and the fact that all who participated in such wretched behaviour would deny it, but the allegations were repeated too often to ignore.
This year, rumours of immense amounts of money changing hands have been rife, but no hard evidence has been forthcoming so far.
The third impediment to accurate results forecasting is the use of the secret ballot.
In the end, the choice is a matter between the delegate, their conscience and the ballot paper.
In the past, cellphone pictures taken by voters of their ballot papers were used to prove allegiance and presumably obtain reward.
This year, cellphones have been banned from polling booths.
We'll see whether another way of knowing a delegate's final vote will be devised.
The fourth factor bedevilling a forecast is the type of person a branch sends to cast its vote.
Some 90% of delegates are branch delegates (the rest are from the youth, women's and veteran leagues, and office bearers). This allows the ANC to claim that 90% of delegates are grassroots, common people.But, at the 2012 Mangaung conference, it was clear that many branches sent delegates who were either municipal councillors, or municipal and provincial government staff.
Given the allegations and extent of maladministration and corruption in local and provincial governments, such delegates face a tough choice between principle and survival.
They could, of course, keep it simple and simply vote as their branch instructed, but the three points above mean that this is not a given.
Were they to find themselves with a hand in the cookie jar and a tendency not to feel morally bound by a branch mandate, they face a tough choice.
SACRIFICIAL LAMBS FOR A GREATER CAUSE
Do they vote for the Ramaphosa ticket with its promise of eradicating corruption and prosecuting those associated with it, thereby endangering their own livelihood?
Or do they choose the alternative and face being ousted in 2019 by a populace fed up with those feeding at the corruption trough - and then being dealt with for their sins?
It was Sir Walter Scott who famously warned: "Oh! What a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!"
Any political pundit knows that internal party political battles are the dirtiest and most deceptive.
It is true that, in politics, your opponents may be across the aisle where you can see them, but the enemy often lurks within your own organisation, unseen, ready to put the dagger in your back.
This is true of the ANC as much as any other political party, and in the ANC as the ruling party, the stakes are higher than elsewhere.
Given this truth, and the matters of nonbinding branch mandate, vote-buying, secret ballots and personal interests of the type of delegate attending the conference, it would take a very brave or very foolish person to predict any result with certainty...