The political events of these past two weeks, which culminated in crisis talks between the African National Congress (ANC) and its alliance partners, signal one thing above all: tripartite chickens have come home to roost.

It took the ANC more than a week to formulate something akin to a coherent response to the dramatic raids on its deputy president, Jacob Zuma. That response was merely to point out the obvious — the raids were “unfortunate”.

This indicates a paralysing leadership deficit at the very top of the ruling party. Analysts have argued that this absence of leadership is the direct result of deep divisions among the party’s bigwigs.

Since the explosion of the Zuma problem five years ago, these divisions — which were mainly over economic policy, transformation, ideology, and leadership style — have crystallised into deeply personal battles between top party leaders. The battles are characterised by suspicion, paranoia and almost visceral mutual animosity between key figures.

This is a sad departure from how the ANC has historically handled internal wrangling. For nine decades — four of them in the dangerous conditions of exile — the ANC and its alliance managed to keep a lid on sometimes fractious leadership struggles.

The glue of struggle that has kept the alliance together for decades has come unstuck during 11 years of governing. Since 1994, the state is an added dimension to the natural power struggles to be found in most political organisations.

Under the presidency of Thabo Mbeki, the state has assumed more importance than most in the alliance are comfortable with. Alliance spats reveal resentment at the growing exclusion from policy formulation, which has taken on a state-led technocratic character.

Whenever state power is part of the equation, the stakes rise in the political machinations of ruling elites.

The state has also assumed greater importance because of a growing perception that it is a tool in the hands of powerful factions to settle political scores. Weak management of this perception has all but brought the tripartite alliance to the brink of collapse.

The timing of the armed dawn raids on properties linked to Zuma fed that perception. The raids came hot on the heels of a call by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) for Mbeki to intervene and force the national prosecutor to drop the Zuma case. Until the raids, the call sounded ludicrous as it amounted to an unconstitutional interference with the judiciary and the work of an independent chapter 9 institution.

While Cosatu was ridiculed for the call, the ruling party must take its share of the blame for the belief, at grassroots level, that the call is legitimate. The ANC has done nothing this year but send mixed messages on the judiciary. Its call in January for a “mind-set change” in the judiciary lends credence to suspicions that Zuma can never get a fair trial from an untransformed bench. Mbeki and the ANC have been unable to acknowledge the power of that perception.

For the first time in its history of more than 90 years, the ANC will now have its succession plan drawn up elsewhere — in a court of law, sitting in judgment on the party’s deputy president.

The history of that saga started when the normal succession battles of the ruling party took an ugly turn four years ago. The then safety and security minister Steve Tshwete admitted publicly that security agencies were investigating a “plot” against Mbeki led by senior ANC national executive members.

Shortly after, Zuma — whom no one at the time considered to be in the running to succeed Mbeki — said he did not want the top job. This was the first public hint that Zuma was a possible ANC presidential candidate.

When the ANC chose not to deal openly with the succession debate, including Zuma’s candidacy, it allowed the issue to fester and feed into its factionalised environment. Even though Tshwete had to climb down and apologise over his claims, suspicions have lingered. Nor did anyone believe that Mbeki himself was not implicated in Tshwete’s clumsy intimidation tactics. Former national prosecutor Bulelani Ngcuka’s now infamous statements about Zuma’s corruption — which the Zuma camp believes were approved by Mbeki — added fuel to a raging fire.

Since the public emergence of this intricate power play, various interests have latched on to a possible Zuma ticket as a way to capture or regain influence in the ANC and, more importantly, the state. And so, enter a disgruntled left, playing an all-or-nothing game predicated on Zuma’s ascendancy. SA’s most important labour federation finds itself holding on to diminished political capital, with no tangible results to show for extremely risky interventions made in the increasingly messy ANC succession dogfight.

What puzzles most observers is why Cosatu would so inextricably tie its bid for renewed power to Zuma. In one stroke last week, Cosatu’s central committee all but erased an entire history of principled defence of SA’s constitution. Privately, many in Cosatu admit that it is an unfortunate strategic lapse to invest so much in a Zuma presidential bid.

Zuma has shown himself to be more open to worker leaders, more tolerant of the alliance left, and has been conciliatory when his boss was at best distant, at worst belligerent. But this is Zuma’s style, not his substance. In politics, it is dangerous to confuse them. There is no conclusive evidence that Zuma is a principled defender of working-class interests.

Also, whatever the perceptions about misuse of state organs to pursue Zuma, there is the reality of a legal court process that cannot be wished away.

There is a possibility that Zuma is corrupt, and could be convicted for it. Any political strategy that fails to acknowledge this is short-sighted at best.

Finally, many in Cosatu have begun to question why defence of Zuma has become synonymous with the interests of workers. The leaders of Cosatu may yet find, to the detriment of their members, that they have driven themselves into a strategic dead end, unable to influence a pivotal ANC leadership contest.

These miscalculations from Cosatu have presented a dilemma for the South African Communist Party (SACP).

The conservative clique that rules the roost in the ANC — which from 1994 had no time for the party — has come to value its role as intermediary, particularly on policy debates. This imposes an obligation on the party to be a “responsible” ally, reining in “populists” in Cosatu. But the party is dependent on Cosatu for influence. This has led the SACP down its own dead end, characterised by an unprincipled hedging game.

The Zuma debacle presents challenges for all components of the ruling alliance. The ANC leadership must satisfy its ranks that there is no foul play in the Zuma prosecution. One way of doing this would be consistent action against all-powerful wrongdoers.

Cosatu needs to accept that there is a legitimate criminal investigation under way, and must stop undermining it. Simply, the only way to save Zuma would be to ensure an acquittal. Cosatu also needs to recover its strategic nous, remembering that the best path to power is to build working-class mobilisation and not to idolise individuals.

The SACP should build bridges to communities, and measure its strength by its rootedness in the struggles of the poor, not its proximity to power.

Brown and Mde are political correspondents.

With acknowledgements to Karima Brown, Vukani Mde and the Business Day.