CHARLES MATSEKE | From State capture to state inheritance: How South Africa’s 'new dawn' became an oligarchic dusk

The Special Investigating Unit’s attempt to downplay the Special Tribunal ruling ordering the return of five luxury vehicles; two Aston Martins, two Ferraris and a Rolls-Royce seized in connection with the R2-billion Tembisa Hospital looting investigation should alarm anyone still invested in institutional accountability.

Last week, former Special Tribunal president Judge Margaret Victor ordered that the supercars be released to Mpumalanga dealership Omar’s Motor Den, subject to security equivalent to each vehicle’s market value.

The cars formed part of nearly R900-million worth of assets seized following raids on alleged looting kingpin Hangwani Maumela’s Sandton mansion and a luxury dealership in Emalahleni.

The ruling, while procedurally sound, symbolises something far deeper: South Africa’s accountability architecture is increasingly performing legality while power quietly reconstitutes itself elsewhere.

This is no longer simply corruption. It is consolidation.

When Cyril Ramaphosa rose to the ANC presidency in December 2017, he promised a “New Dawn.” After the scorched earth of the Zuma years, he cast himself as the rebuilder, the clean-handed constitutionalist who would restore South Africa’s moral compass. The nation, exhausted by scandal, wanted to believe him.

Eight years later, the promise of moral restoration has collapsed into moral insolvency.

Worse still, South Africa is drifting toward oligopoly: a system where power is no longer captured by one corrupt faction but inherited, recycled and shared among political elites, ultra-elites and corporate actors who now operate comfortably behind the president’s polished restraint.

Ramaphosa’s early campaign was a masterclass in moral marketing.

He vowed to end corruption, restore investor confidence and rebuild institutional integrity. His eloquence became armour, language so refined it concealed continuity with the very networks he claimed to dismantle.

Under Zuma, corruption was chaotic: a scramble for rents. Under Ramaphosa, corruption is corporatised.

The state is being absorbed into a structured economy of privilege, where procurement, policy and justice rotate within a closed elite loop. What was once state capture has matured into state inheritance.

The 2021 “step-aside” rule illustrated this perfectly. Marketed as reform, it functioned as selective amnesty. Political rivals were sidelined; allies were insulated. Accountability became factional, not constitutional.

The deeper truth is this: Ramaphosa cannot dismantle the system that elevated him.

His ascent was financed and legitimised by South Africa’s corporate aristocracy. The same conglomerates that now influence economic policy through boardrooms, foundations and quiet consultations. Governance has become shareholder management.

The Phala Phala scandal in 2022 exposed this reality. Undeclared foreign currency hidden in furniture at the president’s private farm revealed not merely personal secrecy but class entitlement. Ramaphosa’s shifting explanations and claims of theft, negligence and conspiracy showed a leader accountable upward to capital, not downward to citizens.

Then came Hangwani Maumela.

For over two years, both the presidency and Ramaphosa personally denied any association with the businessman now under SIU investigation for Tembisa Hospital contracts, the same contracts whistleblower Babita Deokaran died exposing.

Only after SIU raids on Maumela’s Sandton mansion, where luxury vehicles and art worth nearly R820 million were seized, did Ramaphosa speak.

His response was minimalistic: no personal or business relationship, apart from a decades-old marriage link. Viral videos placing him outside Maumela’s home were explained away as coincidental morning walks. Encounters were framed as accidental. Family ties were narrowed to technicalities.

Selective truth-telling has become standard presidential practice: speak only when silence becomes untenable.

More telling are the omissions. Ramaphosa avoided questions about broader cartel dynamics, about implicated associates, and about interference within SAPS and the security cluster including the quiet disbanding of the Political Killings Task Team. Both he and Maumela appear exempt from addressing these structural questions.

This is not coincidence. It is design.

Ramaphosa presides over an inner circle that mirrors the oligarchic fusion he publicly denies. Corporate lobbyists help shape policy frameworks. Ministers sit on boards linked to state contracts. Advisors double as consultants. The revolving door between public office and private profit spins freely.

During Zuma’s era, corruption was loud. Under Ramaphosa, it is orderly.
Each scandal follows the same choreography: a measured statement, a task team, a promise of reform, then silence. Repetition produces fatigue. Fatigue breeds compliance. Accountability becomes theatre.

The SIU’s current posture toward the Special Tribunal ruling is emblematic of this broader performance. Institutions still exist. Processes still run. But outcomes increasingly favour elite continuity.

President Cyril Ramaphosa recently announced a special task team to investigate and prosecute wrongdoing arising from the commission. The team is headed by National Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola’ himself mentioned during testimony.

This raises a fundamental credibility questions.

How does one guarantee impartiality when the investigator is implicated in the ecosystem under examination? Who polices the police when the command structure itself is part of the narrative?

Compounding this is the President’s own appearance in witness testimony not necessarily as an accused party, but as a political reference point within the web of relationships being mapped. Parliament’s ad hoc committee formally requested Ramaphosa to testify. He has yet to do so.

The tragedy of Ramaphosa is not merely broken promises.

It is his success in persuading South Africans that eloquence equals ethics.

Under his watch, the presidency has evolved into an oligarchic boardroom.
The media, once fearless during Zuma’s tenure, has grown timid, louder on spectacle, quieter on structure. Opposition parties issue statements but avoid systemic confrontation under the GNU. Citizens, exhausted by repetition, begin to accept dishonesty as administrative normality.

This is our collective failure: the quiet normalisation of elite rule through democratic language.

South Africa no longer suffers from state capture. It endures state inheritance; the orderly transfer of power between elite networks. The Zuma years were brazen.

The Ramaphosa years are sophisticated. Both share the same moral denominator: the commodification of governance.

Unless journalists, institutions and citizens recover the courage to confront this creeping oligopoly, history will record that the Republic did not collapse. It was quietly privatised.

The “New Dawn” has faded into permanent dusk: a nation governed by gentlemen thieves with good grammar.

Charles Matseke (MPhil in Politics and International Relations) is a researcher and writer with a keen interest in contemporary political dynamics. His research focuses on electoral politics, foreign policy analysis, and international relations, with a particular emphasis on the Global South and Africa's role in global affairs.