President Jacob Zuma has reportedly made an offer to his opponents, saying he will step down ‘a year early’ in 2018, if he can get rid of finance minister Pravin Gordhan now.

This is according to a report by Reuters, citing ‘senior party’ sources close to the matter.

The deal is reportedly a proposal to get out of an impasse Zuma has found himself in regarding an imminent cabinet reshuffle, in which he wants to oust Gordhan and replace him with Brian Molefe.

The move has been widely criticised and opposed by at least half of the ANC’s top 6, and the party’s alliance partners, the SACP.

“Zuma’s early departure after December conference is on the table. It’s being discussed,” one of the sources said. “He could be forcibly removed so it makes sense for him to go on his own terms.”

The offer to step down seems disingenuous, as many analysts have predicted that the president would be stepping down at the end of the year, anyway, following the election of new leadership at the ANC’s elective conference in December.

Former president Thabo Mbeki was also recalled a year before his term as president ended, after Zuma was elected as the new leader of the ANC in 2009.

It is understood that Gordhan’s removal from National Treasury is key to Zuma and his supporters scoring a victory at the elective conference, with the country’s finances needing to be under control to secure Zuma’s network of patronage and tenderpreneurship.

Analysts see Gordhan, and his tight fiscal policies, as a blockade to Zuma’s desire to dip into the fiscus and sign off on a number of lucrative deals for his deployees and friends.

According to the sources quoted by Reuters, Gordhan’s supporters are hesitant to trust any promises made by Zuma, and have fears that whoever replaces the finance minister will facilitate government corruption.

Research analysts at Nomura have held that the baseline view was that Zuma would step down as president in 2018, anyway, and warned that Gordhan’s removal from the National Treasury would be a market negative no matter who takes over.

The group holds the baseline view that firing Gordhan will lead to an immediate rating cut to junk by global ratings agencies.

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