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President Jacob Zuma was on the verge of being removed as South Africa's head of state by the nation's ruling party Africa National Congress (ANC) according to information leaked to the press by a top party official.

The National Excutive Committee (NEC) of the party which has the authourity to remove Zuma, had scheduled a meeting for Wednesday but was canceled late on Tuesday after talks between the ANC's new leader Cyril Ramaphosa and Jacob Zuma yielded a positive result. A negotiated exit looks more likely. 

Senior ANC official Paul Mashatile, who along with 5 others, on Sunday met with Zuma to convince him to resign remarked "Zuma basically said to us: ‘I‘m not going anywhere. I‘m not convinced by you guys so I‘m not going to resign," speaking to investors in a recording that was leaked to local media agencies on wednesday.

"Our view is that if the president doesn't want to resign, for whatever reason, we have a party to run that is going to be very soon in the election campaign," Mashatile said. "We want to ensure that we are not involved in motions of no-confidence, or impeachment that will affect our party."

Zuma, who became president in 2009, has survived a couple of  votes of no-confidence by parliament but  his position came under a more powerful threat when Ramaphosa became ANC leader in December last year.

Zuma was expected to hold a State of the Nation address on Thursday but was called off due to the uncertainty surrounding his tenure. ANC officials would rather Zuma resigns than forced out as that could affect the party's majority status as the African nation's election comes up next year.