Called the Rainbow nations for good reasons bordering on its colourful multicultural population, diverse and rich economy, as well as, interesting mix of friendly climate. But the sun may be setting on South Africa, even as President Jacob Zuma and the ruling African National Congress (ANC) are a fighting credibility battles.

Many are beginning to question the transition, which gained currency under global icon, Dr. Nelson Mandela, and all through to his successor, Mr. Thabo Mbeki. Meeting popular expectation is increasingly yielding frustration.

To Dr. Christopher Malikane, a professor of Economics at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, who spoke with The Guardian, the country may have been short-changed by a leadership, which holds allegiance not to South Africans, but to a particular dominant class, who in turn represents extra-South African interests.

Abstaining from putting South African’s dilemma solely on the shoulders of the incumbent as an individual, Malikane lumped the three-post apartheid leaders into one basket representing a particular class. According to him, “Leadership for me is not an individual matter, although individuals play an important role. It is a class issue. Is the class that dominates providing quality leadership? Quality for who? If you check in South Africa the class that leads is the white capitalist class that has deep and historical links with foreign capital particularly Anglo-American. This class is the one under which nests Mandela, Mbeki and Zuma.

These three are political representatives of this dominant class.

“I must say these three reps have done a wonderful job for the dominant class interests. In this regard they have provided quality leadership that secured and promoted its interests.”

But where does this line of belief leave the majority of the citizens that entertained high hopes upon the demise of minority rule in the country? Has it been gloom-gloom all the way?

In his 2015 state of the union address to the nation, President Zuma had outlined a 9-point agenda seeking to harmonize the people’s expectations. This agenda includes, resolving the energy challenge increasingly facing the country, upping the agricultural value chain, beneficiation through adding value to mineral resources, and a more effective implementation of higher impact industrial policy action plan.

Others on the list are encouraging private sector investment, moderating work place conflict, unlocking the potential of small and medium scale enterprises, cooperatives, townships and rural enterprises, reform of state owned companies, broad band roll out, water sanitation and transport infrastructure, as well as, operation Phakisa, which aims to grow the ocean economy –– such as the shipping and storage of energy products.

Some have dismissed the agenda as anything, but universal received wisdom. Instead, it reflects a bureaucracy and political leadership wanting to “structure” and guide the shape of society in line with their own thinking, ideologically and populist-inspired, rather than asking at any time whether this approach would yield the “ultimate” desired results.

Malikane insisted that the majority is still wallowing in squalid conditions. He noted that despite the ANC-led government to build houses, improve sanitation, education, healthcare, electricity access, and other social services. “But all this is clearly not sufficient as it is done with the confines of a colonial capitalist economy that is liberalised, which limits the pace and availability of resources to the state. The upshot has been an increase in social services protests despite more houses, etc, being delivered. The quality has often been poor as well. Because of the high inequalities and the economic burden on the workers and because the state is not doing enough, unemployment and poverty are still with us,” he said.

In the midst of this, the country may be waxing stronger on graft index. In December, Transparency International (TI) listed the country as the most corrupt on the continent. The organisation, which monitors levels of graft around the world, stated that 83 percent of South Africans believe corruption has increased in the past year. This compares with the African average, where 58 percent of those surveyed believe corruption has risen. About 22 percent think it has dropped. The results are based on interviews with 43,143 people across the continent.

In a veiled reference to the character of the leadership, many South Africans believe that the cancer of corruption can be beaten by the right leadership. About 79 percent of the 2,390 people surveyed in the country, said they think the government is doing badly in fighting corruption; 46 percent of them believe President Zuma is personally involved in corruption.

In his ninth year in office, Zuma has faced a number of potential career-killing allegations, as he lurched from one scandal to the other. Ranging from allegations of taxpayer-funded upgrades to his private estate, corruption allegations linked to an arms deal, and a rape charge, on which he was acquitted after arguing he had unprotected but consensual sex with an HIV-positive woman, to the December sacking of the Minister of Finance, Mr. Nhlanhla Nene. The President had appointed Des van Rooyen, who many feared would be unable to say no to him. Critics called the decision “an act of willful sabotage” and “grotesquely irresponsible.” Swiftly, just as unexpectedly, Zuma announced that he had changed his mind, and instead named Mr. Pravin Gordhan, Finance Minister from 2009-2014, as the new Finance Minister, leaving South Africa with a third finance minister within a week.

The tide may, indeed, be turning for Zuma, a very powerful figure within the ANC hierarchy. People once loyal to the nation’s leader are abandoning him. This week, thousands of South Africans took to the streets demanding he step down.

Last month, thousands of mainly middle-class South Africans marched in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town as part of a #ZumaMustFall campaign, while about 200, 000 have signed an online petition against him.

According to reports, the political discontent may have come amid frustration about the lack of change in the country since 1994. Though, South Africa’s GDP is expected to grow by just 1.4 percent this year, but one in four are reportedly unemployed. “This is not what Mandela spent 27 years in jail for,” Mr. Zwelinzima Vavi said. “If they continue doing what they are doing then we will be in the same position as Zimbabwe is today.”

Several ANC stalwarts have also spoken out against Zuma. Barbara Hogan, a former Health Minister, said that the President had “crossed a line” by firing Mr. Nene. “Ordinary citizens must rise up and say enough is enough,” Ms Hogan told Ground Up, a community news organisation. “We do not have the power to recall the President. Only the ANC has the power to recall. This man is creating economic sabotage.”

Mosiuoa Lekota, leader of the Congress of the People, an ANC splinter party, said that corruption is the most urgent problem in South Africa today. “The only way to eliminate it is to get rid of the source of the corruption, which is Jacob Zuma and the ANC,” he said.

“The international community has lost confidence,” he added. “It’s not a question of tomorrow, it’s a question of now. Zuma must go and the ANC leadership must act.”