Zuma plans January bombshell for Gordhan!

Plot intensifies to install ex-wife as successor

By Tasie Theodore

South African President, Jacob Zuma has a bombshell up his sleeves for his most critical antagonist-of-the-monent, Finance Minister, Pravin Gordhan.

According to sources, serious plots are underway presently to finally resolve the lingering political face-off in the nation between the duo in the month of January.

Underscoring this plot are the belligerent addresses to the ANC Youth League this week by Zuma and his acolyte Collen Maine.

Under the guise of getting everyone to toe the party line, the next phase of the plot is due to unfold when ANC bigwigs of the ruling African national Congress, ANC meet in the first week of January.

At that summit, Zuma is expected to push for and get an “accelerated radical transformation” mandate to help take the nation to its glory heights.

Expected to play very heavily on the lingering aspirations of many poor black South Africans, the speech is expected to set the stage for a major cabinet reshuffle that, to avoid immediate international backlash, is however not expected to take off until after the close of the 2017 World Economic Summit at Davos, Switzerland on Jan 20.

Predictably, the purge will usher in a new Finance Minister with Pravin Gordhan ejected along with other critical cabinet members like Hanekom and Motsoaledi who have recently clashed publicly with Zuma, givien their putting the Constitution above party loyalty.

Another fall-out of the forthcoming purge, sources say, would be the considerable pruning of noted dissidents in the party, a move that is likely to better ensure that Zuma’s ex-wife takes over as the next ANC leader, President of the nation and one who would readily subscribe to a deal to keep the embattled and corruption-wracked President out of jail.

It remains to be seen if this plan would pass without considerable resistance from the camps of Deputy President, Cyril Ramaphosa, the restive South African business community and some of the powerful and dissatisfied trade unions in the country.