With a new president in charge, the national police and prosecutors have started moving against some individuals involved in the dairy farm case. Eight people were charged with fraud, and others had their assets linked to the farm frozen. But a judge released most of the frozen assets in March. The next court hearing in the criminal case is scheduled for August.

Mr. Zwane, who was not appointed to Mr. Ramaphosa’s new cabinet, has kept out of the public eye in recent weeks. Neither he nor Mr. Magashule has shown any willingness to answer questions about the dairy farm from the news media or Parliament — reinforcing the public perception that A.N.C. officials are above the law.

“What has gone wrong has gone wrong under their watch,” said Mathole Motshekga, a senior A.N.C. official who is a member of the party’s decision-making body, the national executive committee, and is also chairman of Parliament’s justice committee. “We expect, and the public expects, that they should take responsibility for what has happened. We are waiting to hear what they have to say, because we don’t expect people in such positions to be absentee landlords.”

But many have given up on the A.N.C. Though the money lost in the dairy farm paled in comparison to the scale of corruption inside South Africa’s state-owned enterprises, it resonated deeply across the nation. Government money meant to help poor farmers simply vanished, the way it does across South Africa, and so far none of the A.N.C. officials in charge at the local or provincial levels have been held to account.

As Mr. Ramaphosa pledges to clean up the South Africa he has inherited from Mr. Zuma, this case will test his capacity to do just that. A spokeswoman for Mr. Ramaphosa said he was unavailable for interviews.

One of the would-be beneficiaries, Adam Khatide, 55, retired early from his teaching job believing that the Vrede dairy farm would take off. In the fallout, he lost faith in the power of his vote.

“It’s voting for nothing,” he said. “Just taking people, putting them in office, and then they eat money.”