Just as we see our ANC politics becoming a zero-sum game, and both dominant factions working actively towards mutually assured destruction, the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ANC pulls a rabbit out of the hat. No wonder they have survived for 109 years as a liberation movement. Over the past few months, the country has been gripped by the shenanigans inside the governing party. NEC meetings, I could have sworn, were as if the pope himself was to address his congregants after meeting. Speculation abounded about whether Cyril Ramaphosa or Ace Magashule would have the numbers on their side and which way the meeting would veer on this or that controversial issue.