To walk out or stay in the African National Congress-led national government is the dilemma facing the Inkatha Freedom party as it goes to its crunch national conference amid deteriorating relations with the ruling party.
The ANC appears unstoppable in its crusade to topple the IFP in KwaZulu-Natal through floor-crossing legislation.
The troubled KwaZulu-Natal-based IFP has come under renewed pressure from its provincial coalition government partner to state once and for all if it will withdraw from the national government and recall its representatives outside the province.
This follows threats by the IFP to take up opposition benches in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature if provincial ANC leader S'bu Ndebele becomes premier by defection "default".
President Thabo Mbeki has reportedly told IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi to make up his mind about whether the IFP will remain part of the central government, instead of repeatedly warning about an outbreak of instability in KwaZulu-Natal.
If the IFP decides to take leave of the government, there could be instability in governance, especially in KwaZulu-Natal where premier Lionel Mtshali this week suspended all executive council meetings until the highest court in the land, the Constitutional Court, has decided on the constitutionality of the floor-crossing legislation.
Mtshali urged all provincial departments, including those headed by ANC MECs, not to "take major decisions" as such a move could undermine the Constitutional Court, which put the legislation in abeyance until August 6 when its full bench will sit to consider the controversial law.
A fresh round of violence in KwaZulu-Natal would undo six years of arduous peace-making between the ANC and the IFP.
The relationship between the parties had remained relatively intact until early this year when ANC hopes of expanding the KwaZulu-Natal executive council to accommodate two extra MECs were dashed by Mtshali's scrapping of a legislature committee to draft a provincial constitution.
If the ANC boycotts the IFP congress, it would discontinue a pattern established in 1997.