Timeline: Jacob Zuma’s swift rise and fall from power

December 18: SA’s Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa is elected president of the African National Congress.

December 20: Ramaphosa fires his first warning shot across President Jacob Zuma’s bows when he states: “The ANC wishes to send a clear message to all South Africans that we are resolved to be a more responsive and more accountable leadership and movement.”

January 13: Zuma is booed at the ANC’s annual statement of January 8 – the founding date of the ANC.

January 15: Ramaphosa suggests Zuma may be removed “in the interests of South Africa” but “should never, ever” be humiliated.

February 5: A pro-Ramaphosa “defence” of Luthuli House against a planned BLF march in support of Zuma goes disastrously wrong when ANC member Thabang Setona kicks Olivia Makete, 52, viciously in the ribs.

February 6: The State of the Nation address is postponed.

February 7: Speculation over Zuma’s position as president flares as silence from the ANC continues.

February 9: Ramaphosa cancels his public engagements.

February 10: The ANC national executive committee (NEC), aka the ANC top six, meets without Zuma after cancelling a weekend walkabout in Cape Town ahead of the party’s centennial celebrations in honour of late former president Nelson Mandela.

February 12: The ANC NEC meets at a hotel in Irene, Tshwane, for 13 hours to discuss Zuma’s future.

February 13: The ANC informs Zuma he has been recalled in terms of its constitution and is given the chance to resign. No time frame is set.

February 14: Parliament moves all committee meetings to the afternoon; the ANC holds a special caucus of all the party’s chief whips.

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