This unschooled man has pronounced himself commander-in-chief of the economy. In doing so, he has grabbed control of all the big state feeding troughs on which the tenderpreneurs have been engorging themselves since he came to power seven years ago. There will now be no restraining them.

The only effective defender who has stood between those leeches and us, the taxpayers — Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan — is being dragged off to the political slaughterhouse by the Hawks, no doubt at Zuma’s behest. Once he is arraigned with whatever charges are to be brought against him and a long trial begins, it is difficult to see how he could continue to function as finance minister, which has now been rendered a nonjob.

Who will replace him? No doubt a Zuma acolyte. My guess is Eskom CEO Brian Molefe, who is known to be close to the Guptas. And they want that nuclear deal with the Russians. Other hangers-on will stay put: Duduzile Myeni will continue flying South African Airways into the ground and Hlaudi Motsoeneng will continue broadcasting the SABC into bankruptcy.

The rand will continue to plunge deeper than ever, and the ratings agencies will almost certainly rate us as junk before the end of 2016. Foreign investment will dry up, just when it was beginning to look as though it might return. Unemployment and hardship will worsen. The people will suffer.

And the ANC will continue to sink below the waterline. It promised to go into a state of introspection after its bad election results. But the mountain went into labour at its lekgotla at the weekend and brought forth not so much a mouse as a spitting cobra.

Therein may lie our hope for the future. In his fury, Zuma may have overreached himself. The people of this country will surely be angry at his arrogance at a time when they might have expected a little humility and real introspection. As the old saying goes, pride comes before a fall.

The key question is what the ANC’s national executive committee, especially the rest of its top six, are going to do about Zuma’s damaging behaviour. Firing Nhlanhla Nene from the Treasury was bad enough, but at least they confronted Zuma then and forced him to back off and bring back Gordhan.

This is 10 times worse, not only gunning for Gordhan in a more vicious way, but also undermining the morale of the whole Cabinet. I know there are many good people in the Zuma administration who are deeply dismayed by what is happening. But they can’t go on just sitting there wringing their hands and with their mouths full of teeth. It is time to speak out.

What about Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa? Surely, he must realise by now that the longer he clings silently to Zuma’s coat-tails, hoping to succeed him, the more his own reputation is going to sink along with Number One’s?

Then there is Gwede Mantashe, who as secretary-general is the man effectively in charge of keeping the party in good order. He has admitted that the ANC is under siege. But what is he doing about it? The closest he has come to doing anything has been to say that an ANC Youth League suggestion that the party’s national conference, due in November 2017, should be brought forward to elect new leaders is “not a bad idea”. Hardly a ringing endorsement, but better than the deafening silence that has been reverberating around the country.

• Sparks is a former editor of the Rand Daily Mail