President Jacob Zuma, according to multiple reports, has been given a 48-hour ultimatum to resign as state president, after the ANC national executive committee (NEC) held an almost 13-hour meeting on Monday that ended at 3am on Tuesday morning.
What really happened in the special NEC meeting will be revealed on Tuesday at 2pm, when the outcome of the talks will be shared with the nation from Luthuli House in Johannesburg. The "Zexit" (Zuma exit) saga has intensified as opposition parties and the ANC try to get Zuma recalled or convince him to resign.
But even if the ANC recalls Zuma, he does not automatically lose his job. He would be expected to display the same deployed-cadre discipline as former president Thabo Mbeki did when he was recalled by the NEC in 2007, and tender his resignation to the speaker of Parliament – but he will be under no legal compunction to do so.
— Ferial Haffajee (@ferialhaffajee) February 12, 2018
With the whole of South Africa – including Zuma, probably – waiting with bated breath for his D-Day, the next 48 hours are likely to be tense.
Knowing Zuma, however, he could well still be president at the end of those 48 hours.
From the ANC top six and the national working committee to ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa, members of the party have called on Zuma to step down, but the resistance continues.
Here are some of the funniest #Zexit tweets from Twitter, as the president faces the most dangerous threat to his tenure.