All that matters in South Africa now is who will win the dangerous dog-fight taking place in the ANC-led Alliance. The presumption is that it will be the ANC Youth League under its president, Julius Malema, but it is not clear yet what Malema's support is, and why his opponents seem to be so helpless.

The Sunday Times reported yesterday that "Julius Malema is on the ropes, with supporters of his ANCYL openly booing him in Limpopo and President Jacob Zuma saying he is likely to face an internal disciplinary hearing." In a separate report though, the newspaper said the Limpopo conference elected Malema's choice, Frans Moswana, as provincial chairman, ousting the incumbent Lehlogonolo Masoga. Also that the people booing Malema were Masoga's supporters.

Malema, it seems, always wins. He does precisely as he pleases, as if the ANCYL calls the tune. This does not necessarily mean he has a mass power base. Throughout history politicians cast in the dictator mould have shown that - for starters - it is sufficient to put together a pack of attack dogs to take over a conference. That's where many ugly movements begin: in conferences, party meetings, gatherings of delegates - the easily manipulated institutions.

Over the weekend, at last, Zuma publicly rebuked Malema for his various provocations, including his fawning visit to Mugabe. Zuma indicated Malema would be disciplined. If so, Malema will just bide his time.

Cosatu is not disclosing its attack hand yet. It appears to have a longer-range strategy (possibly in partnership with the SACP). Just as Malema recruits energetically in the black townships, so Cosatu will do the same, but in "working class communities," a term it uses in the vain hope of avoiding a turf war with the ANC. Obviously, there could be violence when the two forces meet.

Cosatu says it has plans for "rolling mass action" at the Zuma government's "economic fault lines," but it may find that by the time it gets its act together, Malema's populism will have accelerated the pace of conflict so effectively that the dog-fight is over.

As for the ANC, its performance has been the feeblest of all the attack groups. It pivots around President Jacob Zuma, whose life must be a misery: intimidated on one side by the menace of an unleashed ANCYL, and on the other by a semi-impotent ANC. Let us not forget that Zuma became president by accident.

Here then are the four main participants in the dog-fight: ANCYL, Cosatu, SACP, ANC. Cosatu and the SACP want to shift the state to the Left; if the ANC has a mind and aims of its own it has yet to reveal them; as for the ANCYL it is going for a take-over of the ANC to get its hands on power and money.

The Sowetan reported (April 7) that "key ANC members" want to change the party leadership when the elective national council meets in 2012 (a report promptly and expectedly denied by the ANC). The present "top six" are: President Zuma, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, National Chairperson Baleka Mbete, Secretary General Gwede Mantashe (also SACP chairman), Deputy Secretary-General Thandi Modise, Treasurer General Mathew Phosa.

If the "key ANC members" have their way (shouldn't The Sowetan have said "key ANCYL/ANC members"?), the new leadership will look like this: Zuma and Motlanthe retain their positions, Mbete is replaced by Bathabile Dlamini or Angie Motshekga (or Dlamini and Motshekga switch around as Deputy Secretary General), Mantashe is replaced by Fikile Mbalula (former ANCYL president, presently Deputy Police minister), and Phosa is replaced by Jeff Radebe.

A change of this kind would be a coup, a regime change. The new government would shift somewhat to the Left - not for ideological reasons, but as a means to gain rich pickings. High on the list of Malema priorities would be land and minerals. Malema and his mates would descend on them like locusts, regardless of what happens to the country.

The retention of Zuma and Motlanthe in their top jobs would not be written in stone. They would have what the British call grace-and-favour accommodation - from which they will be painlessly removable. But not yet: Mantashe is the priority - the key man Malema wants to oust.

How seriously should Malema's ambitions, and talks of future coups, be taken? Seriously. Malema's own rise in politics has been spectacularly rapid, and this is not because the media have given him too much publicity. The media have recognised him for what he is: a political monster.

It is appropriate here to quote the words of Mondli Makhanya in yesterday's Sunday Times: "There are dangerous people taking dangerous decisions and leading us in a very dangerous direction... these dangerous people are to be found in politics, in business and in civil society...Equally dangerous are the silent men and women who watch this happen and simply shrug and sigh. These men and women are to be found in politics, in business and in civil society. They feel it is up to someone else to do something. Not for them the courage of their convictions".

I would dearly like to know who these dangerous people are (I can guess the names of many of them, but who are the others?). What this tells me is that unless a wholly new ANC emerges soon from the undergrowth of black politics, and hits back, the coup outlined above is entirely possible, although the names of both the outgoing and the incoming may be changed quite a lot from the list the Sowetan gives above.

Under Malema, South Africa would also formally approve the pattern of politics as set out by Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Potentially, at least, therefore, the dread of many South Africans that their country could become like Zimbabwe will become real.

South Africans like to fall back on two familiar sayings. One is that the country progresses by political disasters and economic windfalls. The other is that in South Africa the worst never happens.

The reality is that SA may be facing a terrible future of racial violence and economic deprivation as investors take to the hills, with only Chinese greed for coal and other resources to slow its failing economy, mounting joblessness and growing social instability. Even more whites and Asians could emigrate, and the skills deficit could widen as the spectre of another Idi Amin advances and morale plummets.

The fence-sitters and hope-against-hopers surely must see now that in their fairy-tale world there really is no future.

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