The Juju Kid and Cactus Vavi ride into town

Everyone enjoys a shoot-out, even when the OK Corral is actually in Durbs-by-the-Sea. And since South Africa increasingly resembles the Wild West, there has been a collective frisson of excitement at the prospect of Sheriff Jacob Zuma having to face down a brace of itchy finger contenders for control of Dodge City.

Media expectations are high that the upcoming week-long meeting of the African National Congress’s National General Council will see the sheriff — who in between romancing his latest girlfriend moonlights as SA’s president — being challenged by the Juju Kid or Cactus Vavi. Or both.

The NGC oversees a mid-term review of ANC programmes and the state of the party under Zuma, which on the face of it is not very good. The Congress of SA Trade Unions’ Zwelinzima Vavi warns of an imminent ‘predator state” headed by powerful, corrupt and demagogic political hyenas.

On the opposite wing, the ANC Youth League has moved from being willing “to kill for Zuma”, as Julius Malema put it, to apparently wanting just to kill Zuma. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Speculation is that the NGC meeting is an opportune moment to “recall” Zuma, who in his determination to be all things to all men appears to have alienated both wings of his alliance. On both wings the early dawn chorus at Zuma’s inauguration, that “of course” he would serve a second term has changed its warble. Now the solemn intonation is that “nothing is prescribed, the branches will decide”.

Writing in Business Day, Wits University’s Anthony Butler argues that the real issue is not whether to get rid of Zuma, but whether this is the right moment to do so. The strongest motivation for a pre-emptive strike is that by 2012, when the decision on a second presidential term has to be taken, it might be too late.

“If they wait two more years … regional barons who trade money and power in their personal fiefdoms might swing behind Zuma — particularly if they feel he offers protection and further opportunities for enrichment.”

In similar vein, The Daily Maverick believes that the ANC Youth League “has clearly decided” to ditch Zuma and it, too, predicts that the behind the scenes presidential contenders will allow Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe to serve once more as stand-in president until they can reveal their hands closer to 2012. Poor man: always the stop-gap solution.

There is another scenario that arguably is more likely. That the pretenders will end up blasting away at one another, while Zuma leans up against the saloon door watching, with arms folded.

There is a tendency to underestimate Zuma. It can be fatal. Ask former president Thabo Mbeki, who was stunned by how humiliatingly easily Zuma claimed his scalp.

Forget the fractured syntax and the word scramble of Zuma’s unscripted speech. Forget the flashes of naiveté. Forget the avuncular mien and the real personal warmth.

Too much is made by observers of the fact that Zuma slipped into office because he was the convenient anyone-but-Mbeki alternative. The implication is that it makes him particularly vulnerable to being ousted because he is the simple-minded puppet of strategically and intellectually superior generals.

But Zuma didn’t get to head of the ANC liberation struggle intelligence apparatus because he is a pushover. While it might have been a unique confluence of forces that catapulted Zuma from ignominy to presidency, he is not easily going to allow that bonanza to be wrested from him.

Not only does he have the power of incumbency on his side. The centrist rump of the ANC must worry about who would hold from one another’s throats the two fiercely opposed socialist and nationalist factions, if Zuma were to bite the dust.

While Zuma might not be able to run out of town the gunslingers eyeing his office, they in turn are a long way from being sure of taking him down.