Johannesburg: The top leadership of South Africa’s African National Congress will discuss removing President Jacob Zuma from his post at a meeting this weekend, according to two senior party officials who will be in attendance, with the country in the grips of its biggest political crisis in a decade.

The ANC’s national executive committee is due to discuss a motion of no confidence in Zuma that has been filed by opposition parties in parliament. Some members of the panel will also raise the possibility of removing Zuma as the nation’s president at the May 26-28 meeting, according to the party officials, who sit on the decision-making body and asked not to be identified because they aren’t authorised to speak publicly on the matter. The rand gained as much as 1.5 per cent against the dollar on Tuesday.

While the committee rejected the possibility of ousting Zuma at a meeting in November, opposition to his rule has mounted within the party’s ranks following his March 31 decision to fire Pravin Gordhan as finance minister, a move that prompted S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings Ltd to downgrade the nation’s sovereign credit rating to junk.

Divisions in the party have widened since the ANC suffered its worst-ever electoral result when it lost control of Johannesburg, the economic hub, Pretoria, the capital, in a municipal vote in August. Three of its top six officials criticised Zuma’s decision to fire Gordhan, while Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, who’s a rival to Zuma’s ex-wife to succeed him as party leader in December, said on Sunday that South Africa is threatened with becoming a “mafia state.”

No-confidence motion

The ANC will want to avoid a situation in which its lawmakers back the opposition motion to force Zuma to resign, said Anthony Butler, a political-science professor at the University of Cape Town.

“The decision to remove Zuma as president of the country would be taken by the NEC and then communicated to the parliamentary caucus,” he said. “A vote of no confidence would be, in the ANC’s logic, a dangerous thing, as it could create serious intra-party conflict and an inability to regroup.”

ANC spokesman Zizi Kodwa said that while the agenda will only be set at the meeting, the committee won’t discuss Zuma’s removal.

The Constitutional Court is considering whether to agree to an opposition party call for a secret ballot on the no-confidence motion in Zuma.

Secret ballot

The chances of Zuma being recalled remain low, Peter Attard Montalto, a London-based economist at Nomura International, said by email.

“We expect actually the NEC meeting this weekend to send a formal instruction to the National Assembly caucus to not vote for the no-confidence motion regardless of the secret ballot case outcome,” he said.

Read more on Zuma’s possible early exit

Zuma is due to step down as ANC leader in December and as president in 2019. His term has been marred by a succession of scandals, including a finding by the nation’s top court that he violated his oath of office by refusing to repay taxpayer money spent on his private home. Labor unions and the South African Communist Party, which form part of the country’s ruling coalition, have called for his replacement.

A group of 101 ANC stalwarts and anti-apartheid activists want the NEC to hold a consultative conference to discuss calls for Zuma to step down, Johannesburg-based newspaper Business Day reported on Wednesday, citing party veteran Frank Chikane. Should they fail to get the backing of the NEC to hold a consultative congress that runs separately from a policy meeting scheduled for June, the stalwarts will hold their own gathering, and invite civil society groups, the newspaper said.

The ANC’s executive committee has recalled a sitting president before, having ordered Thabo Mbeki to set down in 2008.

“The NEC can force Zuma to stop being president of the country, but not of the ANC as this can only be done at an electoral conference,” Butler said.