The New York Times slammed the ANC in its leader article on Sunday, saying South Africa's governing party has become "gorged on corruption".
This follows a special report published in the newspaper and online last week in which the "gray lady", as the newspaper is known, examines state capture and the state of the country by referencing the corruption with the Vrede dairy farm as well as the role Mosebenzi Zwane (former provincial MEC and Cabinet minister) and Ace Magashule (Free State premier and the ANC's secretary general) played in the debacle.
The New York Times writes South Africa is by no means the most corrupt in sub-Saharan Africa or in the world, but that the country should be measured against the goals it set for itself. It calls corruption "galling", especially given the fact that is is the poor who suffer the most.
Although the removal of Jacob Zuma as head of state promises a new start for the country, the newspaper's editors are wary of President Cyril Ramaphosa, who they say made his fortune "largely through his ties to the party, and his Cabinet includes officials who stand accused of corruption".
The newspaper argues South Africa should be held to a higher standard than most precisely because of the scale of corruption and its effect on the poor, but also because South Africa "has the democratic tools to combat the blight of corruption".
In the special report, the newspaper fingers the ANC as the source of corruption, explaining to its readers that, since the dawn of democracy, "tens of billions" of dollars have been siphoned off by the party's leaders, the same leaders "that had promised them [South Africans] a new, equal and just nation".