Is Julius Malema, the president (for the moment) of the ANC youth league, potentially as big a political tsunami as Jacob G Zuma was in 2008, in the run-up to the ANC's Polokwane jamboree at which Thabo Mbeki was unseated?

Are there any parallels between Malema's and Zuma's stories, especially in terms of them being "persecuted"? Have the two of them dealt with the ANC in a similar manner? Can Zuma outwit Malema - and what will Malema do if he finds himself outside the tent?

Questions, questions, questions - swirling around as Malema, and ANC YL spokesman Floyd Shivambu, deputy president Ronald Lamola, secretary-general Sindiso Magaqa, his deputy Kenetswe Mosenogi, and treasurer-general Pule Mabe, remain in the dock, primarily for announcing that the league would work to effect "regime change" in Botswana and thus "bringing the ANC into disrepute".

But Malema is really the main person in the matter; and of course the charges against him - now about to play out properly before an ANC disciplinary committee (DC), chaired by Derek Hanekom - are both to do with what was said about Botswana but at the same time have little to do with Botswana.

We need to be clear about this. Some analysts have brushed aside the Botswana issue - and said that the real issue is the back story (which is really the front story!): Malema versus Zuma.

But the facts of the matter show us that Malema has in the last months had carte blanche to say pretty much what he's wanted to say - some of it  offensive and some of it stupid to boot. But what he has not been allowed to do is insult the party and its present leader, nor to mess with the succession issue, nor would the present leadership be at all amused by comments about Botswana.

The ANC and the government (which are the same in this case) take their relationships with African leaders, especially neighbouring ones, very seriously indeed and Malema's remarks would have been deeply embarrassing.

One thing you never do is embarrass Zuma - which Thabo Mbeki forgot, to his cost.

But, having said that, the main issue is indeed the real front story: who is to control the party and the limelight in the months preceding the ANC's Mangaung conference of 2012?

Unfolding from this part of the story is the present political situation of the two main leaders, Zuma and secretary-general Gwede Mantashe. The Youth League pretty much announced - not a smart move - that it preferred present deputy-president Kgalema Motlanthe as the next president of the ANC and the Republic, and Fikile Mbabula, the minister of sport, as the next ANC SG.

This might have been noted with a fatherly smile by Zuma and Mantashe if their political situations were different. But they have been under considerable internal political pressure for some time now.

Zuma's Cosatu's allies are disappointed in him; at the last Cosatu congress, Zuma could hardly get anyone else to sing Umshini wami. His ally in the SACP, general-secretary Blade Nzimande, who has ruled the party with an iron fist for a while, is having his own troubles with his fellow reds. There is a bit of revolution in the party and so neither Nzimande nor Mantashe (chairman of the SACP) are in as much control there as they would like.

In short, given the recalcitrance in recent months of Cosatu and the SACP, and various other troubles, and given Zuma's decision to go for a second term, it was not a good time for the ANC youth league, in the form of Malema, to declare that it didn't care much for Zuma anyway.

This being the case, the general offensiveness, the noise about nationalisation (not good for foreign direct investment), and finally the comments about regime change in Botswana, were all something of a gift for Zuma, Mantashe and other oldies. It gave them the chance to strike hard at Malema and the youngsters.

For there is another issue worth bearing in mind, one well captured on television this week by Moeletsi Mbeki. He pointed out that a recent study had revealed that a massive percentage of those who voted and vote for the ANC are unemployed.

It is precisely these people - the disaffected, the hungry, the unemployed, the lumpenproletariat, if you will - who see Malema as their true representative, and not the fat cats in big cars driving in and out of Luthuli House, even if Malema is also one of the plump felines.

As Mbeki put it, Malema has, in a sense, usurped the ANC - and Zuma and Mantashe and others were not going to put up with this ...

Now - if we swing back to Friday morning - Malema tried, ironically, the same kind of defence (Kemp J Kemp's "Stalingrad defence") at his disciplinary hearing by challenging the charges while outside his supporters made Johannesburg's Beyers Naude Square (formerly the Library gardens) ungovernable.

But it didn't work and Malema simply doesn't have as much legal wiggle-room as Zuma had. Also, Malema is being tried by his own party. Zuma, by contrast, always played softly-softly with the ANC membership- with whom he has had literally decades more experience and nous than Malema.

So: can Zuma outwit Malema?

By the look of things, Zuma has already outwitted Malema and Malema is either going to be suspended or kicked out of the party in the next few weeks.

Malema can try to drum up support externally - he could try to "split" the party - but it would take a more charismatic and charming person to do that. Besides, a recent serious attempt to set up in opposition to the mother church - e.g., COPE - has not gone very well.

It looks to me as though the tsunami that Malema might have been is going to blow out over the sea in the next few weeks without causing too much more damage.

It seems that Zuma remains an antagonist you underestimate at your peril.

* Jeremy Gordin was formerly associate editor of The Sunday Independent. He has written or co-authored three books, including the bestselling biography of Jacob Zuma. He is director of the Wits Justice Project. This article first appeared in the Sunday Tribune.

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