Most cabinet ministers loyal to President Thabo Mbeki have vowed to go down with him if he is pushed by the ANC, although the Jacob Zuma camp wants finance minister Trevor Manuel to remain in the interests of stability.
Manuel is understood to have upset some ANC cabinet ministers on Wednesday when he cautioned against the prevailing view in the cabinet, which favours a legal remedy to what the finance minister believes is essentially a political crisis.
The cabinet has decided to seek legal opinion on the way forward, after it rejected several inferences by Judge Chris Nicholson, including that Mbeki had interfered with the National Prosecuting Authority's prosecution of the ANC president.
Mbeki and Zuma were expected to meet on Thursday night, after their meeting scheduled for Wednesday did not take place.
Zuma was expected to assume a conciliatory approach and to ask Mbeki to work with the party to save himself further humiliation, ahead of a crucial meeting of the ANC's national executive committee, which begins today (Friday).
Zuma is expected to try to unite the party given the explosive polarisation likely to be caused in the already conflict-riven organisation, if Mbeki is indeed axed.
But this would put the ANC president on a collision course with the party militants, whose position has hardened since the National Prosecuting Authority's decision to appeal against Judge Nicholson's judgment.
Earlier on Thursday, Mbeki's legal adviser, Mojanku Gumbi, made a presentation to a special cabinet meeting detailing the presidency's options to challenge Judge Nicholson's judgment.
Gumbi apparently convinced the cabinet to hire a private legal firm to appeal against Judge Nicholson's inferences that Mbeki and his executive had interfered in the prosecution and that there might have been some substance to Zuma's claims of a political conspiracy against him.
According to a cabinet member, Manuel cautioned against using a legal strategy to a political problem.
"Manuel mainly argued for a political approach," said the cabinet member.
It is understood that public enterprises minister Alec Erwin was furious with Manuel and argued that the president should clear his name and that most ministers owed their political careers to Mbeki.
Another source confirmed independently that Erwin was angry with Manuel, accusing him of not defending Mbeki publicly.
"He sees Manuel as a sell-out, especially because of talk that the Zuma people want to retain him. Manuel never refuted such talk after Polokwane," said the source.
Manuel's spokesperson, Thoraya Pandy, said the minister would not comment on cabinet discussions.
But other ministers supported Erwin, with another privately telling The Mercury that the feeling was that "half" of them would resign with Mbeki, thereby "imploding the government".
"They will definitely stand by him," said the minister.
ANC ministers excused science minister Mosibudi Mangena, the president of the Azanian People's Organisation, and other government officials from Wednesday's cabinet meeting, to talk about the strategy.
The meeting continued late into the afternoon, when the decision was taken to rally around Mbeki.
Deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka - who was appointed by Mbeki after he fired Zuma in 2005 - has also indicated that she will resign if Mbeki goes.
Some of the new leaders in the ANC despise Mlambo-Ngcuka because they associate her with her husband, former national director of public prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka, who was the first prosecutions boss to investigate Zuma.
If most of the cabinet ministers resigned, this would pose a political nightmare for the ANC because some of the national executive committee members, including Zuma, do not want to reconstitute the government because they are not ready to govern.
But the cabinet was warned by a senior government official that the legal route could be interpreted as a challenge to Zuma.
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