The art of diversion is a skilled one indeed. To do it well, an audience needs to be persuaded that the new issue being raised is more important than the original matter being obscured.

This is difficult enough at the best of times. But when dealing with matters of national importance, under the scrutiny of the country's media, it takes great skill, and a healthy dose of luck, to pull it off.

The ease with which this has happened in the public war of words between Deputy President Jacob Zuma and prosecutions chief Bulelani Ngcuka is remarkable. How many in the public are currently focused on the original allegations? Lest we forget, the issue at hand is an allegation that the second-highest person in government solicited a bribe from French arms company Thales, with the help of his financial adviser, Schabir Shaik.

Shaik is scheduled to go on trial soon. A 45-page charge sheet against him points to an alleged R1,2m money trail that starts at Thales and ultimately leads to Zuma. The charges allege that a set of financial transactions took place, in which money changed hands illegally and that the money was used to settle Zuma's debts.

But these issues are no longer dominating the public debate. This is because it has become a political debate rather than one about corruption, as it should be. And the reason is that Ngcuka has made the tactical error of engaging Zuma on a political level, rather than sticking to his allotted task of prosecuting.

Ngcuka should have charged Zuma or dropped the case for lack of evidence. No further comment from him was necessary.

Instead, a war of words has broken out between the two camps, with the media caught right in the middle.

Ngcuka's troubles began when the Scorpions issued a set of questions to Zuma about the arms-deal allegations swirling around him, rather than questioning him face to face. This gave Ngcuka's detractors the opportunity to leak the questions to the Sunday Times, which set the political ball rolling.

Then he briefed editors of the country's key newspapers on the case in an off-therecord discussion. The point about telling journalists stuff is that it will inevitably be published in some form. Politicians and bureaucrats tend to give journalists information in the hope of gaining sympathy for their side of the story. If they are doing their jobs, journalists will use that information to feed into their analysis of the event, or as a lead to do further investigation. Either way, it tends to get out.

And finally, in a fateful announcement on August 23, Ngcuka declared that while the Scorpions had a prima facie case against Zuma, there was at that time insufficient evidence to prosecute. This really set the cat among the pigeons. Zuma, a skilled tactician who ran the African National Congress' (ANC's) intelligence unit for years, had little choice but to fight back, which he has done on a political level. And Ngcuka has handed him the tools to do so.

Now, instead of a court case to determine Zuma's innocence or otherwise, we have a judicial commission of inquiry into allegations that Ngcuka was an apartheid spy. Opposition political parties are in a frenzy, there are mounting casualties in the media and questions are being raised about whether the ANC's centre will hold.

Zuma is fast winning the political battle, leaving President Thabo Mbeki in an increasingly invidious position. The president is highly unlikely to intervene further. Any move he makes now will be interpreted as siding with one of the protagonists, which will either fuel the war between them, split the ANC or both. This war will be played out to the end.

And only one is likely to survive.

With acknowledgements to Mr.Chalmers and the Business Day.