South Africa vows to end corruption. Are its new leaders part of the problem?

Even with the gentle pressure of her tiny frame, the floor caved in. Ziyanda flailed wildly, clinging to the edges of the hole, frantically trying to keep herself from falling in and drowning in the fetid pool below.

She held on long enough for an older boy to run in and save her.

Hundreds of parents, enraged that their warnings about the dilapidated school had been ignored for years, burst into protest a couple of days later, upending their quiet rural town for two weeks last August. They burned tires, blocked roads and demanded justice from the provincial government led by David Mabuza, a former math teacher who had become one of the most powerful figures in the African National Congress and was positioning himself to become South Africa’s deputy president.

One of the party’s historic promises had been to provide a good education for black people, who had been deliberately denied the opportunity under apartheid. ANC leaders like Nelson Mandela often spoke about freeing black South Africans through school, and Mabuza, whose first big post in the province was education minister, got his political start by promising just that.

But under the ANC, the education system has been in shambles, so gutted by corruption that even party officials are dismayed at how little students are learning, in schools so decrepit that children have plunged to their deaths in pit toilets.

The rage in Ziyanda’s town grew so intense that protesters hurled stones at a local ANC leader, who narrowly escaped by whipping out his handgun and shooting randomly into the crowd, wounding two children and roiling the community all the more.

Mabuza never came to the school or met with the parents — and for good reason, local officials contend. The dangerous conditions were a clear reflection of his control over the province, where millions of dollars for education have disappeared into a vortex of suspicious spending, shoddy public construction and brazen corruption to fuel his political ambitions, according to government records and officials in his party.

But the uprising and allegations against Mabuza did not crimp his political rise. To the contrary, only a few months later, as the ANC tried to quash national outrage over misrule by its leaders, Mabuza scored his biggest triumph by far. He was picked to become second-in-command of the entire ANC, launching him into an even more prominent post — as South Africa’s deputy president, second only to the nation’s leader.

Mabuza may seem an odd choice, especially at a time when the ANC is desperate to purge its reputation for graft and restore its image as the rightful heir to Mandela’s legacy. After all, Mabuza’s rural province, Mpumalanga, is fairly small, has little economic clout and is widely regarded as one of the country’s most corrupt.

But that is the vexing secret behind Mabuza’s spectacular climb, current and former ANC officials say: He siphoned off money from schools and other public services to buy loyalty and amass enormous power, making him impossible to ignore on the national stage and putting him in position to shape South Africa for years to come.

“He didn’t become what he is now because of his political capability,” said Fish Mahlalela, a senior ANC figure in the province and a national lawmaker.

“No, no, it was out of money and the manipulation,” he added. “Nothing else.”

Perhaps more than any other member of South Africa’s new government, Mabuza undercuts the promise of a “new dawn” in the country after the removal of President Jacob Zuma this year.

Besieged by scandals that have hacked away at the ANC’s legitimacy and electoral prospects, the party installed a new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, in February. From the start, he pledged to root out corruption and finally deliver on the promise of a just South Africa for all of its citizens.

But to seal his new post, Ramaphosa first had to secure the backing of Mabuza, 57, who built such a formidable political machine that he became kingmaker in the back-room negotiations to choose South Africa’s new president. After campaigning for a rival, Mabuza abruptly switched sides and joined forces with Ramaphosa, helping the two emerge from a pivotal party conference last December as the country’s undisputed leaders.

Then, to the surprise of many in his province, Mabuza gave a speech just weeks after being sworn in as deputy president this year, lamenting the poor state of the schools and the “tragedies that take away the innocence of our children.”

Yet under Mabuza’s leadership, millions of dollars for schools in his province have been misspent year after year, according to the national government. His province routinely spent less on poor students than required, and school construction projects have been riddled with inflated costs, government records show.

Nearly a quarter of the primary schools in Mabuza’s province still have only dilapidated pit toilets, despite ample government funds to fix them. And during his tenure, his province was caught fabricating the passing rates on the annual national exam, enabling him to claim big leaps forward that never happened.

The schools Mabuza did champion provided an easy way to funnel large amounts of money into politics, according to ANC officials, high-ranking defectors and anti-corruption groups. He pushed to build big boarding schools whose costs tripled, for unexplained reasons, to $30 million each, alarming education experts. Some construction was so shoddy that roofs sprouted leaks soon after being finished, toilets barely worked, students lacked water, retaining walls collapsed and dormitories were missing doors, according to a provincial report.

Over the years, Mabuza’s province also became known as one of South Africa’s most dangerous. Nearly 20 politicians, most from inside the ANC, were assassinated in the past two decades, some after exposing graft in public works projects.

All the while, Mabuza’s political career flourished. He attracted legions of new ANC members with government contracts, cash handouts and even KFC meals, according to current and former party officials.

His sweeping recruitment drive turned his relatively insignificant province into the ANC’s second-biggest voting bloc. Under the party’s delegate system, his territory became more influential than even Gauteng, the province that includes Johannesburg and Pretoria, with a population three times the size and an economy nearly five times as big.

Now, critics contend, Mabuza’s role as the country’s second-most powerful politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of the new government and its assertions that the ANC is turning the page on corruption.

Mabuza, who declined to be interviewed, built his political career on the schools. Unlike other, more celebrated anti-apartheid leaders, he did not go into exile; he was not imprisoned on the infamous Robben Island. Instead, he fought for the right of black South Africans to receive an equal education, a call he echoed in his recent speech.

As many South Africans pin their hopes on Ramaphosa’s pledge for a fresh start, analysts say that much of the country is looking past an unpleasant truth: The new president owes his victory in part to corruption, and much of his administration’s future — as well as the country’s — rests in the hands of Mabuza.

“If there is any powerful person whom Ramaphosa’s presidency actually relies on, it is Mabuza,” said Ralph Mathekga, the author of “Ramaphosa’s Turn: Can Cyril Save South Africa?”

“We are being reluctant as a nation to face the reality of Mabuza,” he added. “If Ramaphosa gets hit by a bus, Mabuza is going to be the president.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.