Corruption crisis erodes democracy

Below is an extract from a new book, Promises and Peril – the South African Crisis, by Al-Qalam editor, Imraan Buccus.

Many countries followed a similar trajectory after independence from colonialism, and we should have been prepared for the risks that corruption could become an overwhelming structural crisis. After all, while in exile, many leaders in the ANC had witnessed how corruption had corroded social hopes in other African countries. Corruption is not an African pathology. It is a global and often structural problem, deeply connected to the global crisis of democracy and the rise of neoliberalism. In countries as different as Brazil, India, and the United States, we see similar patterns: state capture by elites, the monetisation of political access, and the subordination of the public good to private gain.

Yet what is particularly shocking and painful about the crisis of corruption in South Africa is the depth of the betrayal. A struggle waged in the name of justice and equality has given rise to a political order that reproduces the very inequalities it sought to undo and often protects them with violence. The democratic institutions established after 1994 have not been dismantled, but they have been politicised, weakened, and often penetrated or even captured by criminal networks. As the Zondo Commission into state capture revealed in painstaking detail, this process of degradation was not incidental. It was planned, coordinated, and executed at the highest levels.

The growing convergence between political corruption and violent crime is particularly alarming. In parts of the country, with KwaZulu-Natal being the most notorious, the political system has become entangled with networks involved in the construction mafias, political assassinations, and protection rackets. The state is no longer simply corrupt; in places, it is criminal. Tenderpreneurship — the use of political connections to secure state contracts — has flourished in this environment. Figures such as Shauwn Mkhize, whose wealth derives from lucrative municipal contracts, illustrate how blurred the lines have become between business, politics, celebrity, and gangsterism. Assassinations of rivals in the construction industry and the use of intimidation to secure contracts are often quietly tolerated or ignored.

The cumulative result is a system in which public resources are militarised. The awarding of a contract can trigger a killing. A councillor’s appointment can incite a gang war. A protest can provoke a police assassination. Violence becomes the means through which political and economic power is maintained. This is not merely a state failure. It is the emergence of a new kind of state — one that kills not in the name of ideology, but in defenceof extraction, and in which the line between governance and gangsterism is no longer clear.

Corruption has become one of the dominant lenses through which South African political life is understood. Yet this discourse is often shaped by a narrow set of voices -NGOs, think tanks, and donor-funded institutions. But too often their framing of corruption has been technocratic and depoliticised, focused on transparency and accountability in the abstract while avoiding deeper questions of inequality, power, and political economy. The systemic dimensions of corruption; including the role of neoliberalism, outsourcing, and elite patronage networks, are sidelined in favour of compliance frameworks and superficial metrics.

Moreover, some of the leading figures in this network speak and write in ways that show a tin ear when it comes to race. This has limited the capacity of anti-corruption discourse to resonate widely. Many of the NGOs operating in this space are themselves reliant on international donors whose agendas are shaped by geopolitical priorities rather than grassroots realities. The result is a language of moral condemnation which is often racialised, rather than popular and progressive political mobilisation. It struggles to confront the structural conditions in which corruption thrives and rarely accounts for the complicity of elite private actors, from multinational corporations to domestic capital, in sustaining systems of extraction and inequality. Nor does it engage seriously with how anti-corruption rhetoric can be weaponised to delegitimise state-led transformation or protect the status quo.

If South Africa is to build an effective and enduring response to corruption, it cannot rely solely on elite NGOs or donor-driven campaigns. What is required is a genuinely popular and democratic project that confronts the social and economic roots of corruption and reimagines the state as a vehicle for collective freedom.

Corruption is inseparable from a broader crisis of legitimacy. When citizens see politicians enriching themselves while services collapse, faith is lost not only in political parties but in the idea of democratic politics itself. This vacuum is dangerous. It creates space for authoritarianism and for demagogues who promise to clean up corruption while entrenching their own patronage networks. Cynicism, disillusionment, and despair deepen, particularly among the youth. The fact that the majority of South Africans no longer bother to vote is a devastating indictment of the conduct of the political class over the past three decades.

At the same time, corruption is embedded in the everyday functioning of the state. Honest officials work in systems where it is often impossible to complete even basic tasks without navigating demands for bribes or favours. Tenders are manipulated to benefit the connected rather than the competent. The looting of public resources is not marginal; it has become a defining feature of the political economy.

Yet this is not the whole story. Across the country, honest public servants continue to do their jobs under extremely difficult conditions. Investigative journalists, whistleblowers, judges, and prosecutors have resisted intimidation. Above all, courageous grassroots activists have stood firm in the face of threats, violence, and assassination. Movements that expose corruption in housing allocation, land deals, or procurement have paid a heavy price. This violence is not random. It follows the fault lines of contestation: over land, housing, resources, and political office. It punishes exposure and rewards silence. It is not the residue of a violent past. It is the architecture of the present.

South Africa’s crisis of corruption must therefore be understood not as a moral failure of individuals, but as a structural crisis of the post-apartheid order. It is rooted in a political settlement that protected elite interests, embraced neoliberal orthodoxy, and hollowed out the idea of public service. Without confronting these foundations, anti-corruption efforts will remain shallow and easily co-opted. The choice is stark: either corruption continues to corrode democracy from within, or a genuinely democratic and popular politics emerges, capable of reclaiming the state from extraction and violence, and re-anchoring it in the needs and dignity of the many.

Many countries followed a similar trajectory after independence from colonialism, and we should have been prepared for the risks that corruption could become an overwhelming structural crisis. After all, while in exile, many leaders in the ANC had witnessed how corruption had corroded social hopes in other African countries. Corruption is not an African pathology. It is a global and often structural problem, deeply connected to the global crisis of democracy and the rise of neoliberalism. In countries as different as Brazil, India, and the United States, we see similar patterns: state capture by elites, the monetisation of political access, and the subordination of the public good to private gain.

Yet what is particularly shocking and painful about the crisis of corruption in South Africa is the depth of the betrayal. A struggle waged in the name of justice and equality has given rise to a political order that reproduces the very inequalities it sought to undo and often protects them with violence. The democratic institutions established after 1994 have not been dismantled, but they have been politicised, weakened, and often penetrated or even captured by criminal networks. As the Zondo Commission into state capture revealed in painstaking detail, this process of degradation was not incidental. It was planned, coordinated, and executed at the highest levels.

The growing convergence between political corruption and violent crime is particularly alarming. In parts of the country, with KwaZulu-Natal being the most notorious, the political system has become entangled with networks involved in the construction mafias, political assassinations, and protection rackets. The state is no longer simply corrupt; in places, it is criminal. Tenderpreneurship — the use of political connections to secure state contracts — has flourished in this environment. Figures such as Shauwn Mkhize, whose wealth derives from lucrative municipal contracts, illustrate how blurred the lines have become between business, politics, celebrity, and gangsterism. Assassinations of rivals in the construction industry and the use of intimidation to secure contracts are often quietly tolerated or ignored.

The cumulative result is a system in which public resources are militarised. The awarding of a contract can trigger a killing. A councilor appointment can incite a gang war. A protest can provoke a police assassination. Violence becomes the means through which political and economic power is maintained. This is not merely state failure. It is the emergence of a new kind of state — one that kills not in the name of ideology, but in defenceof extraction, and in which the line between governance and gangsterism is no longer clear.

Corruption has become one of the dominant lenses through which South African political life is understood. Yet this discourse is often shaped by a narrow set of voices -NGOs, think tanks, and donor-funded institutions. But too often their framing of corruption has been technocratic and depoliticised, focused on transparency and accountability in the abstract while avoiding deeper questions of inequality, power, and political economy. The systemic dimensions of corruption; including the role of neoliberalism, outsourcing, and elite patronage networks, are sidelined in favour of compliance frameworks and superficial metrics.

Moreover, some of the leading figures in this network speak and write in ways that show a tin ear when it comes to race. This has limited the capacity of anti-corruption discourse to resonate widely. Many of the NGOs operating in this space are themselves reliant on international donors whose agendas are shaped by geopolitical priorities rather than grassroots realities. The result is a language of moral condemnation which is often racialised, rather than popular and progressive political mobilisation. It struggles to confront the structural conditions in which corruption thrives and rarely accounts for the complicity of elite private actors, from multinational corporations to domestic capital, in sustaining systems of extraction and inequality. Nor does it engage seriously with how anti-corruption rhetoric can be weaponised to delegitimise state-led transformation or protect the status quo.

If South Africa is to build an effective and enduring response to corruption, it cannot rely solely on elite NGOs or donor-driven campaigns. What is required is a genuinely popular and democratic project that confronts the social and economic roots of corruption and reimagines the state as a vehicle for collective freedom.

Corruption is inseparable from a broader crisis of legitimacy. When citizens see politicians enriching themselves while services collapse, faith is lost not only in political parties but in the idea of democratic politics itself. This vacuum is dangerous. It creates space for authoritarianism and for demagogues who promise to clean up corruption while entrenching their own patronage networks. Cynicism, disillusionment, and despair deepen, particularly among the youth. The fact that the majority of South Africans no longer bother to vote is a devastating indictment of the conduct of the political class over the past three decades.

At the same time, corruption is embedded in the everyday functioning of the state. Honest officials work in systems where it is often impossible to complete even basic tasks without navigating demands for bribes or favours. Tenders are manipulated to benefit the connected rather than the competent. The looting of public resources is not marginal; it has become a defining feature of the political economy.

Yet this is not the whole story. Across the country, honest public servants continue to do their jobs under extremely difficult conditions. Investigative journalists, whistleblowers, judges, and prosecutors have resisted intimidation. Above all, courageous grassroots activists have stood firm in the face of threats, violence, and assassination. Movements that expose corruption in housing allocation, land deals, or procurement have paid a heavy price. This violence is not random. It follows the fault lines of contestation: over land, housing, resources, and political office. It punishes exposure and rewards silence. It is not the residue of a violent past. It is the architecture of the present.

South Africa’s crisis of corruption must therefore be understood not as a moral failure of individuals, but as a structural crisis of the post-apartheid order. It is rooted in a political settlement that protected elite interests, embraced neoliberal orthodoxy, and hollowed out the idea of public service. Without confronting these foundations, anti-corruption efforts will remain shallow and easily co-opted. The choice is stark: either corruption continues to corrode democracy from within, or a genuinely democratic and popular politics emerges, capable of reclaiming the state from extraction and violence, and re-anchoring it in the needs and dignity of the many.

*Dr Imraan Buccus is editor of Al-Qalam and research fellow at the University of Johannesburg. 

The book is available at Exclusive Books, Sherwood Books, and  Baitul Hikmah – Published by African Perspectives.